Writing Dissertation Acknowledgments

Last Updated on December 13, 2020 by Ayla Myrick

Acknowledgements are primarily inserted for political purposes and usually accompany the proposal to do research, but not the prospectus. They should contain thanks to faculty members whose classes were particularly meaningful, committee members, and the advisor and/or mentor.

Acknowledgements should be written in the most professional manner possible. The acknowledgements are among the first of the preliminary pages; therefore, the advisor and committee members read them first and tend to judge the professionalism of the following dissertation based on the professionalism shown in the acknowledgements.

Remember that the acknowledgements will live in the dissertation long after the writer is dead, so avoid gratitude to animals or coffee pots, even if they lived and died while they supported your scholastic efforts.

Ayla Myrick
More in this Series << Writing an Abstract for your DissertationWriting Chapter 1: The Introduction >>