RTS Doctor of Ministry - Information & Resources for Current Students
For a listing of upcoming courses, see here. Students may take courses at any campus location where they are offered. For specific questions, contact your campus Registrar or D.Min. office.
Researching information for your D.Min. project will require a commitment to explore numerous resources in order to support the thesis statement on which you are working. The RTS Libraries provide the search tools you will need to find both books and journal articles to enrich your writing.
Merely pulling books off one's personal shelves or off one CD will be insufficient - you will need to reconsider your expectations! Such an approach will almost certainly result in your proposal being returned for further work before you can proceed.
The first step is to consult the RTS D.Min. Manual so that you understand what is expected of you.
Next, you need to start on a working bibliography. You may want to avail yourself of one or more of the programs available for tracking citations and/or aiding your writing (see citation & writing tools tab). Use the RTS Library catalog to identify book titles. Search the ATLA Database to create a list of journal articles.
CLICK HERE for help on LOGGING INTO ATLA DATABASE.
If part of your project involves using a survey or other social research tool to identify issues in your local ministry context, you will want to consult some tools which can help you do that more effectively. Unless you have prior training in how to create such surveys, you are most likely not well equipped to create them. Consult the research tools tab for more help.
When doing research, you want to think in terms of assembling various tools for your 'tool box'. No one source will provide all that you need.
Check the Quick Links box for a jumping off point to some of the main tools at your disposal.
In addition, below are some book titles that may be useful to you.
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Research Strategies by 
Tricks of the Trade by 
Writing for Social Scientists by 
Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day by 
The Craft of Research by 
Getting It Right by 
The Seminary Student Writes by 
Handbook for Doctor of Ministry Projects by 
Writing the Doctoral Dissertation by 
How to Write a Thesis by 
Introduction to Missiological Research Design by 
A Guide to Biblical Commentaries and Reference Works by 
How to Design Survey Studies by 
The Survey Handbook by 
Analyzing Social Settings by 
Doing Theological Research by 
Doing Oral History by 
Qualitative Research by 
Practical Theology and Qualitative Research by 
How to Write a Thesis by 
Research in Pastoral Care and Counseling by As you do research for your D.Min. courses or your final project, you will need to use books and journal articles. Here is a quick overview of how to get what you need.
LOCAL RESOURCES
Take stock of the academic libraries within a couple hours of where you live - seminaries (of any outlook), colleges, or universities. Though they may not allow you checkout privileges, almost all of them will allow you to use their collections on-site. If you find journal articles or sections of books that are useful, you can make photocopies or scans of them. Do not assume that because it is a secular institution that they will not have any resources of use to you. Most academic libraries collect many of the same journals and reference works.
BOOKS
We recommend two primary ways to search for book titles. First, the RTS Library Catalog. Second, go to WorldCat at www.worldcat.org. WorldCat is a tool which searches library holdings from all over the United States. When you perform a search, you can type in your local zip code and it will tell you what libraries in your area hold the title you've searched. These two tools will help you discover which books you may want to use.
Acquiring books through Inter-Library Loan (ILL)
If you find book titles which you cannot access easily on the local level, then note this basic information from that book:
Take that information to your local public library & request an inter-library loan for that title. Some public libraries may charge a small fee per request, but others will not. The library will then look to see which library in your region can get the title to them the quickest. Once the book arrives, you can check it out & do your research.
Two suggestions about this process (from a former public librarian!):
The RTS libraries do not ship books by mail to students, so using local ILL is the way for you to acquire the books you need.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Many articles you find in the online databases RTS provides, such as ATLA Religion Database or JSTOR, will be full-text online. But not every article will be offered full-text online (some publishers won't allow it at all, or not until a period of time has passed after publication).
Sometimes you can locate a journal article through the actual website for that journal (many post some or all of their archives that way). Yes, that takes some extra digging, but it could save you some time if you find what you need.
For articles you cannot locate online, note the following information:
Most of the time you should be able to cut and paste that information from the database in which you found the article.
You can then send the information for the article(s) you need to the library staff at the RTS campus at which you are registered. They will find the article & send back to you a scanned copy of it.
Again, some suggestions:
While we do not charge for scans of article we send to our students, we reserve the right to limit how many requests we will be able to fill in a given time frame.
TRACKING YOUR RESOURCES
As you work on a paper, especially so for your final project, don't lose track of where you find things! See our 'Citation and Writing Tools' tab for suggested tools which will help you retain the research on which you work. To make sure you cite things properly, note the 'Formatting' tab for guidance. Remember, if you have a great quote but can't remember where it came from, you can't use it!
Purpose
The beginning of the written project process is to produce a quality “project proposal.” The Project Proposal is a blueprint of the research plan for the entire project.
It is a formal document presented to the faculty D.Min. Committee for evaluation and approval. The proposal outlines the anticipated research model that the student will utilize to study the chosen topic and report on findings. The proposal is intended to provide a roadmap for the student’s research and writing for the duration of the project process. Once the proposal is approved by the D.Min. Committee, an Advisor is appointed and the writing may begin.
Elements of a Project Proposal
Below is a brief summary of what your proposal should include. **Consult the full D.Min. Manual before embarking on your Project Proposal.**
1. A Concise Title
2. Statement of the Topic (Problem, Need, Research Interest)
3. Research Questions
4. Research Strategy
5. Proposed Outcome of the Study (New Model of Ministry)
6. Chapter Summaries
7. Surveys, Questionnaires, Interview Questions
8. Timeline
9. Bibliography
Developing a thesis statement/statement of topic (item #2 above)
Deciding the topic you will deal with but also a specific thesis goal can be challenging. You may find it helpful to consult books that discuss how to arrive at a good thesis statement. One such book is Kibbe's work shown here, but look in the sidebar listing of books in this LibGuide for more resources. Your project advisor can work with you in developing your thesis statement as well.
Formatting for D.Min. projects at RTS is done according to A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Disserations, 9th ed., by Kate L. Turabian, et. al.
Students are strongly encouraged to purchase a copy of this resource as soon as possible so as to become familiar with its requirements. You can view the Turabian quick guide, but DO NOT RELY ON THAT PAGE ALONE! You still need the actual book as a resource (print or e-book).
We also provide an RTS D.Min. formatting guide, which also includes templates you can look at in order to help you get your final project looking as it should.
When in doubt, by all means contact your RTS librarian for assistance. The sooner you familiarize yourself with the proper formatting, the easier it will be later.
Many students will find that using a citation tool will help them as they work through papers for individual courses and much more so as they work on their final project.
The list below is by no means exhaustive, and new tools appear from time to time.
The main point is to find a tool that will work best with how you do your research and writing. If you don't like a tool, you won't use it. Your best bet may be to try some of the free tools first, and then if those don't appeal to you, perhaps you will invest in one of the other tools.
**Please note!** None of these tools is perfect, and many will produce citations with missing details, especially for journal articles.
After you import citations into your paper, you still need to check them for completeness and accuracy (no blaming the program!).
Keep in mind you want a tool that will allow you to export citations in Turabian format (see Formatting tab).
You are not required to use any of these tools, but many students find them helpful in organizing their working bibliography and citations.
Sometimes D.Min. students desire to see what other projects/theses have been written by D.Min. students. This may help a student formulate their own working proposal. But ultimately each student must choose a topic which is of interest to them.
PLEASE NOTE: Under NO circumstance should you use someone else's project as a formatting template for your own! Refer only to the RTS format guide and Turabian for such issues.
Here are suggestions if you want to survey other D.Min. titles:
Some D.Min. students ask about searching Ph.D. theses. Frankly, that is probably not that beneficial for the purpose of writing a D.Min. project. You can go to https://delicious.com/rtslibrary/ and search the tag 'Theses' to see various links to Ph.D. theses, but the best databases are not free.
An effective survey can be a useful tool for assessing situations in ministry so that a response can be determined which will hopefully be more beneficial.
However, unless you have training in social sciences which includes how to create good qualitative &/or quantitative surveys, you will almost certainly fail to produce a useful tool. There is far more involved than tossing together a list of questions. Fortunately, there are a good many resources out there to help you formulate a survey to that it's not an exercise in futility.
Step 1: Defining the goal(s) of the survey
Almost everyone wants to begin designing a survey by listing questions to ask. But that is not the starting point.
The first thing to do is write out a succinct goal for the survey. What is it you want to find out? The less complicated the better, as the more variables you add, the less likely you will succeed.
The best survey will have only one primary goal and perhaps a few lesser goals which are sub-points of the main goal and not entirely different.
The goal should be stated in one paragraph or less. If you can’t summarize it, don’t bother proceeding any further!
Step 2: Defining the type of the survey
To simplify, there are two sorts of survey research (though often a survey will contain both types of questions):
Qualitative: WHY, WHEN, WHO? - This type seeks to find the motives, reasons, narrative involved in one or more issues. This sort of research is largely subjective.
Quantitative: WHAT, HOW MANY? - This type counts things. This is pretty easy to formulate, though not without pitfalls. This sort of research is more objective.
With either sort of research, great care must be taken in drawing up questions and interpreting them, or conclusions drawn can be extremely inaccurate.
A helpful explanation:
“Difference Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research” by Surbhi S.
Step 3: Crafting questions in order to inform the goal (not the outcome!)
Defining *effective* questions is not as easy as you think. Every question MUST serve the goal or it should be discarded. No matter how interesting a question may be, if it does not help meet the goal of the research, get rid of it!
"Surveys 101: A Simple Guide to Asking Effective Questions" by Stephanie Beadell
DO NOT EVER ASK MORE THAN ONE THING IN ONE 'QUESTION'. If you want to ask 3 different facets of a question, make it into 3 separate questions.
Mix the kind of questions you ask: open-ended, multiple choice, selection lists, etc. But don't form them in such a way that people think any of them are 'trick' questions. You want honest answers.
Step 4: Summarize the results
This is not yet a place to draw conclusions from the results (see step 5). This is more like a 'lab report' on a science experiment.
You do not have to list ALL results (though you can do so in an Appendix). But you should be able to group responses in some systematic way to show things fairly.
Step 5: Analyze the results
Note that this is not "twist the results to arrive at my predetermined conclusion"!
Step 6: Define conclusion(s)
Based on the analysis of information, look at your goal and define the way(s) in which the information answered it. Again, the goal here is to boil things down to digestible answers.
A caution: do not OVER analyze and OVER conclude things from the answers you receive. In other words, don’t try to squeeze the results into a pre-determined desired outcome. Let the information speak for itself, whether you like the outcome or not.
Here are a couple of beginning level guides to crafting surveys.
The RTS Libraries have several other related titles.
Your guide to writing quality research papers : for students of religion and theology by 
Research and Writing in the Seminary by 
From Topic to Thesis by 
Writing Theology Well by 
Studying Congregations by 
Research in Ministry: a primer for the doctor of ministry program by 
Write Tight: how to keep your prose sharp, focused, and concise by 