Immy Holloway and Lorraine Brown, the authors of Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate, explicitly identify their intended audience as “doctoral candidates who write their dissertations in English….” This review looks at the book from two frames, a professor who mentors doctoral students, and, imaginatively, as a student who is trying to write my first qualitative dissertation. I found the book has a number of strengths, most especially its broader focus than solely on a US Ph.D. However, the broad focus left many important details in the background. Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate is probably best seen as a helpful reminder to a student in the writing phase of the dissertation of what the student should already have learned and mastered in prior course work.