The PhD dissertation is the ultimate educational product. It reflects the training of its author and the technical, analytical, and writing skills he or she developed in a doctoral program. Successful completion of the dissertation and the award of the PhD certify that the degree recipient can do independent scholarly work. That much is generally agreed. But who decides what an acceptable dissertation looks like? What are the standards by which faculty evaluate dissertations? This article draws on a study that asked faculty to make explicit their implicit criteria for evaluating dissertations. The study aimed to help departments, disciplines, and universities develop objective standards for the outcome of doctoral training--the dissertation--and to use these standards in two ways. At the student level, the goal is to employ them to improve graduate education and training and make it more transparent to students; at the program level, it is to assess educational effectiveness. (Contains 2 tables.)