How to Write Dissertation Acknowledgements

Dissertation writing is not easy. When you are just going to write your dissertation, you may be anxious about the whole process of writing as well as the result you’ll obtain having accomplished it. Any dissertation should be composed of several chapters and presupposes profound knowledge of theoretical material, the need to provide proper citing of the used sources and related materials and correct information management. In order to show how grateful you are to people who have helped you writing your dissertation, you are expected to write a dissertation acknowledgement.

You should know that dissertation acknowledgements are represented in the form of single-page entries, which are typically placed between the title page of your dissertation and its Introduction section. Sometimes, however, your dissertation acknowledgement may be inserted at the end of your dissertation (before or after the Bibliography section). Dissertation acknowledgements generally represent your gratefulness and acknowledgement of help you were provided with when working on your dissertation. Writing a dissertation acknowledgement is a responsible and quite significant task, because you make people who contributed to the success of your dissertation research feel that you are thankful to them and appreciate their efforts.

When writing your dissertation acknowledgement, you may either compose a kind of a small essay or simply enumerate all the chapters of your dissertation giving respect to people, materials and institutions that have helped you a lot when conducting your research and writing your paper. One of the most important things you should be aware of is that a dissertation acknowledgement does not have to be written in formal style. You may use any style you consider to be the most suitable.

Though there is nothing difficult in writing dissertation acknowledgements, you may still benefit from using the following tips:

• Your dissertation acknowledgement should obligatory have a heading, which should be located in the center of the line
• The text of your dissertation acknowledgement should contain such phrases as “I am grateful……”, “It is a great pleasure to give respect to those who made this thesis possible….” etc.
• Do not forget to make up a list of all those people whom you are thankful to (parents, friends, professors, supervisors, research advisors, co-workers, librarians, lab assistants. classmates etc.)
• Do not make you dissertation acknowledgment too long and think about the way you are going to present your dissertation acknowledgement so that it should not be boring.

Below is a sample of a dissertation acknowledgment that may give you a general idea of how it should look like.

Acknowledgement

I owe sincere thankfulness to my research advisor, John Damon, who made me believe in myself and guided me through the whole process of dissertation writing. I am sure that this dissertation would not have been possible without his support, understanding and encouragement I felt when working on my research paper. I would also like to show my gratitude to my parents, friends and colleagues for their help and moral support.

Jane Preston