Writing acknowledgements

The help that the writer has received from persons or institutions during the research and writing process is often acknowledged in the finished text. Below, advice is given on how to write such acknowledgements in academic texts. If you are a student, check with your department whether you will be expected to include an acknowledgment or not in your degree projecxt; this depends on the kind of study you carry out and different departments may have different conventions.

Acknowledgements

In academic writing it is appropriate to give credit to funding bodies, departments and individuals who have been of help during the project, for instance by supporting it financially or by giving feedback on the text during its composition and revising stages. Such brief written notes of thanks are called acknowledgements. In journal articles, there may be a brief note indicating gratitude to those who have been of help, whereas acknowledgements in book-length studies (e.g. doctoral theses) will sometimes be considerably longer. Departments and publishers have guidelines and standards for how such acknowledgements should be phrased. Likewise, some funding bodies provide guidelines as to how their contribution should be credited. Generally, acknowledgements contain the following elements: 

  • Full names of all individuals who are being thanked.
  • A brief statement as to what kind of help the writer has received from each individual, group of people, funding body, etc.

For some research projects, ethical approval or  other kinds of permission will be needed, and it is often stated in the acknowledgements that such approval has been granted. 

Note the distinction between 'acknowledgement' and 'dedication': a dedication is a personal statement "which says in whose honour something has been written, made, performed, etc." (Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary).

Below are examples of phrases often found in acknowledgements for research publications. Different funding bodies and publishers may have different preferences as to how acknowledgements should be phrased. Note, too, that practices vary between disciplines.

  • I am deeply grateful for...
  • We gratefully acknowledge the support of...
  • The research for this article was
    • funded by...
    • carried out with the X project funded by...
  • We would like to thank X, Y, and Z for
    • stimulating discussions about...
    • feedback on an early version of...

 

 

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