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Thesis & Dissertation Acknowledgements | Tips & Examples
The acknowledgements section is your opportunity to thank those who have helped and supported you personally and professionally during your thesis or dissertation process.
Thesis or dissertation acknowledgements appear between your title page and abstract and should be no longer than one page.
In your acknowledgements, it’s okay to use a more informal style than is usually permitted in academic writing, as well as first-person pronouns. Acknowledgements are not considered part of the academic work itself, but rather your chance to write something more personal.
To get started, download our step-by-step template in the format of your choice below. We’ve also included sample sentence starters to help you construct your acknowledgments section from scratch.
Table of contents
Who to thank in your acknowledgements
Generally, there are two main categories of acknowledgements: professional and personal.
A good first step is to check your university’s guidelines, as they may have rules or preferences about the order, phrasing, or layout of acknowledgements. Some institutions prefer that you keep your acknowledgements strictly professional.
Regardless, it’s usually a good idea to place professional acknowledgements first, followed by any personal ones. You can then proceed by ranking who you’d like to thank from most formal to least.
Acknowledgements dos and don’ts
- Write in first-person, professional language
- Thank your professional contacts first
- Include full names, titles, and roles of professional acknowledgements
- Include personal or intangible supporters, like friends, family, or even pets
- Mention funding bodies and what they funded
- Appropriately anonymize or group research participants or non-individual acknowledgments
Frequently asked questions about the acknowledgements section
In the acknowledgements of your thesis or dissertation, you should first thank those who helped you academically or professionally, such as your supervisor, funders, and other academics.
Then you can include personal thanks to friends, family members, or anyone else who supported you during the process.
Even if you feel your supervisor did not contribute greatly to the final product, you must acknowledge them, if only for a very brief thank you. If you do not include your supervisor, it may be seen as a snub.
The acknowledgements are generally included at the very beginning of your thesis, directly after the title page and before the abstract.
In a thesis or dissertation, the acknowledgements should usually be no longer than one page. There is no minimum length.
You may acknowledge God in your dissertation acknowledgements, but be sure to follow academic convention by also thanking the members of academia, as well as family, colleagues, and friends who helped you.
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Tegan George
Tegan is an American based in Amsterdam, with master’s degrees in political science and education administration. While she is definitely a political scientist at heart, her experience working at universities led to a passion for making social science topics more approachable and exciting to students. A well-designed natural experiment is her favorite type of research, but she also loves qualitative methods of all varieties.
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Dissertation layout and formatting
This article contains great tips for your dissertation. It shows how to make page numbers and table and figure numbering.
Thesis & Dissertation Title Page | Free Templates & Examples
Your dissertation or thesis title page should include your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date.
How to Write an Abstract | Steps & Examples
The abstract is a short summary that appears at the start of your paper. It concisely reports your aims, methods, results, and conclusions.
Table of contents
Generally, there are two main categories of acknowledgements: professional and personal.
A good first step is to check your university’s guidelines, as they may have rules or preferences about the order, phrasing, or layout of acknowledgements. Some institutions prefer that you keep your acknowledgements strictly professional.
Regardless, it’s usually a good idea to place professional acknowledgements first, followed by any personal ones. You can then proceed by ranking who you’d like to thank from most formal to least.
Example 1
I would like to thank the following people for helping with this research project Representatives from Historic England, Historic Scotland, the Society for the Protection of Scottish Buildings and the Sustainable Buildings Alliance for their willingness to impart their knowledge. From the bottom of my heart I would like to say big thank you for all the bioelectronics research group members for their energy, understanding and help throughout my project, especially to Mr D.
Now that you know all the details, it’s time to prepare for a final defense. We wish you to nail your defense and earn your degree effort-free!
Resources:
https://prothesiswriter.com/blog/how-to-write-an-acknowledgement-for-a-thesis
https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/acknowledgements/
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