Ph. D. programs are valuable only if they inculcate good scholarship and expedite the student' s full participation in the field. Hence, doctoral dissertations should not be required in the humanities. Undertaking a quality book-length dissertation demands an accumulation of knowledge virtually impossible for those relatively new to their disciplines. The student consequently either seeks to compensate for poor quality with quantity or ends up spending years producing a work of quality. Either way, the dissertation is counterproductive and frustrates the appropriate goals of the doctoral program. The claim that doctoral dissertations should not be required in the humanities plays which one of the following roles in the argument? ['It provides evidence for the assumption that requirements for degrees in the humanities differ from requirements for degrees in other disciplines.', 'It confirms the observation that the requirement for a dissertation can frustrate the goals of a doctoral program.', 'It is what the argument is attempting to establish.', 'It provides essential support for the conclusion.']