Writing the Acknowledgement Section for a Dissertation or Thesis

One of the key components of any dissertation or thesis is the acknowledgment section. It is the section of your dissertation that is completely devoted to showing appreciation and acknowledging the colleagues, professors, or other people who helped make your dissertation possible.

The acknowledgment section of the dissertation is a section that is solely dedicated to being grateful for the people who helped make the hard feat of acquiring a doctoral degree possible for the student. It is proper to thank and show gratitude for even moral support. It is known how hard a dissertation is to complete and how emotionally and mentally tasking it may become, so thanking the people who helped you morally as still seen as necessary as thanking the people who might have helped intellectually.

While only a few people were mentioned in this sample, it is expected to mention every person who helped in any way. Whether it was morally, intellectually, technically, or quite literally like a donor of your education or committee member of the dissertation which would have impossible to complete without.

Acknowledgements pages show the essence of the thesis author and their experience of a doctoral life span, but acknowledgements do matter because in amongst the celebration the right people need to be thanked in the best words.

The usual structuring principles apply: those who gave most should be given the most thanks. Supervisors will know the sad truth if the cat gets more lines than they do. Typically the structure moves from thanking the most formal support to the least formal thanks–funders, supervisors, other academics, colleagues, and finally family. This makes sense according to the logic of incremental progression because the informal thanks to family are often the most heartfelt. Close family members are often the people who gave the most (although some supervisors are likely to feel this is not true). They should also acknowledge proofreaders and editors.

Acknowledgements vary in length, and very long acknowledgement dilutes the thanks. Thanks are best when concrete. Acknowledgement must be short and crisp.

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