Thesis Acknowledgement: What Is It and How to Do It?

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13th Oct 2016

A thesis has always been a challenging part of an educational process because there’s so much you need to do before this writing nightmare ends. Even when you’ve learned many things, you need to learn more to submit your thesis. This isn’t a standalone project since there is no way you can do it on your own. One way or another, there is always a certain group of people who are involved in your project. As it often happens, we’ve never really given much thought to whom we should be grateful for this or that thing in our lives, for our accomplishments, for our success. However, there comes a point when we should express our appreciation and gratitude in more or less formal way.

When you’ve completed the first draft of your thesis, a thesis acknowledgement (ack.) is another very important thing that you have to consider. In a thesis, writing an acknowledgement to contributors is similar to revealing a little secret to complete strangers. We must admit that it’s a little scary. This is the topline and the essence of your work. It is very similar to acknowledgements that are mentioned by famous writers and novelists in their books. It’s who you are grateful for something. Speaking of the thesis acknowledgement, it is as clear as day that in this section you are to thank all those people who contributed to your project, a research paper, a thesis, a dissertation, etc. It is vital mainly because you show how sincere you are about your work, and about the efforts of other people.

thesis aknowledgement

What is a thesis acknowledgement?

In today’s article, we’d like to focus on what a thesis acknowledgment is, what you need to write in it, who you have to mention, and how you should write it. From what we’ve learned, we know that many of those who write theses cannot understand why they should be grateful for something to someone, if the major parts of their work were done by themselves. Well, it is understandable that the first person whom you are grateful for something is you and you alone, but think about it once again. As it was already mentioned, it isn’t a standalone project because you have your adviser who controls your work process and gives you some pieces of advice (sometimes, he doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean that you have not to mention him or her in your acknowledgements), you may ask your peers or friends to take a look at the first draft of your thesis, your friends may give you some useful ideas and advises that you may use in your project. Finally, your parents may look through your work and comment on its weak points. These are people whom you should be grateful in the end.

Of course, when you almost finish your thesis writing process, your first intention may be to go and surf the World Wide Web for acknowledgement sample to copy and paste everything, except for names, but wait up, you can do it on your own!

In general, an acknowledgement means recognition of truth, admittance of existing of some fact, theory, and contribution and so on. In our case, a student shows his or her appreciation to those people who contributed to his or her work the most. You acknowledge these people to let them know how grateful you are for their assistance. Acknowledgement's meaning differs depending on a sphere where it is used, for example, in business, in law, etc.

Such tasks are a constituent and essential part of your work because:

An ack. forces you to think over a work process, who helped you to get where you are at the moment.
An ack. brings self-awareness of strong and weak points in the thesis, and in any other academic assignment.
An ack. shows how grateful you are, how much you appreciate the help of people who contributed to the project.
An ack. that is given at schools is a great exercise that provides a teacher with some important information on what you are capable of doing on your own.

Defining who you should mention, and in what order you should mention those people will be your next step. Usually, the most thanks are given to those who contributed the most, and then you are to mention people with whom you’ve been collaborating for some time. After that, you should thank to some members of a scientific laboratory who helped you conduct an experiment or series of experiments. Besides these people, you might have received some financial support on the part of some funding organizations, or companies, or educational communities. In such a case, you should show them your appreciation as well. You are also welcome to thank your University department, or faculty, or educational organizations, or previous professors who somehow contributed to your present academic achievements. In the end, you may also express your appreciation to your family, friends and relatives who supported you in the course of writing a thesis.

How to write acknowledgements for a thesis?

Unlike a book’s acknowledgement, where you are welcome to write about anything or anyone in much or less acceptable manner, a thesis acknowledgement should be formal because it is a scientific project. The text of an ack. changes from more formal in the beginning to the least formal in the end. We recommend you avoiding strong emotions in an ack. Sometimes, some people, for some reason feel free to write a dedication instead of an acknowledgement. There, they start enumerating every single person whom they wish to show appreciation. Please remember that an acknowledgement isn’t a love letter. You are welcome to write one just after you are done with this assignment. It is normal to thank your family and friends, but make sure that your writing is formal.

Usually, acknowledgements vary by length, depending on a number of people whom you’d like to express your gratitude to. An acknowledgement can be two or three abstracts long, or it can be two or three pages long. Despite that, please keep in mind that overlong acknowledgments are meaningless since they are difficult to understand. Especially if you are thanking everyone on a global scale. These works of thankful art seem a little bit odd because readers tend to lose focus of what they are reading. So, our next advice in this respect is to be specific. Be as specific as possible. Before you proceed to writing an ack., you should be aware of who specifically helped you during your work. In case if you are a dunno person (or a daydreamer), you should write down names and surnames of your contributors beforehand to be able to use them afterwards. When you’ve just started working on your thesis, you’ve taken some notes, so why you shouldn’t take some notes here, or you can always consult some writing guides to find an appropriate sample acknowledgement, if this is a complete dead-end.

State full name of a person you’d like to mention in an acknowledgement. However, it is recommended not stating a position of a person because you have to read a very long piece of text that turns out to be completely boring in the end. Notwithstanding that, you should check with your advisor or thesis committee members on an appropriate way of mentioning these people in your writing.

As it was said, a thesis is a scientific project that is why no personal pronouns are allowed. However, in an ack. you are encouraged to use personal pronouns such as “I”, “we”, “you”, “me” to express gratitude and appreciation. You are also welcome to use such introductory phrases as “I’d like to thank…”, “I express my gratitude…”, “We’d also like to thank….” and so on.

Finally, when the whole gratitude-expressing-process is done, you should leave it in peace for a while to let your eyes rest from the text. You can return to it later to proofread it for readability and correctness in terms of grammar.

Conclusion

We hope that this piece of a thesis writing advice will serve you well. We’d just like to add that when you write an assignment like this one, keep in mind those who are going to read your thesis. Don’t go into personal details of your life in here. Just keep it to the reasonable level and everything will be great!

If you do not have time, you can pay for thesis, which could be done by professional writers for you