Tips on Writing Acknowledgments

When you publish a work or get any sort of public recognition, you should be thankful to people who made it possible by helping you. For example, this blog at Writers-House.com offers advice if you are worried about your academic writing skills. Writing an acknowledgment is not an easy task because you should define what tone is better to use and understand how formal your writing should be. No matter if you need to write public thanks or academic acknowledgments, it will be easier to do if you follow our tips.

Academic Acknowledgments

1. Choose the right tone and form. Quite often, acknowledgments are the last part of a dissertation or formal thesis. Thus, you face a challenging task that requires you to add something personal to a technical project. Stick with a professional style, addressing people specifically and mentioning how exactly they’ve helped you with the project.

• Your acknowledgment page can be either a regular paragraph or a list.
• Address everyone individually, mentioning what you remember from working with them and how they participated in the process.
• Sometimes, it’s difficult to emphasize someone’s contribution over another person’s contribution. In this case, there’s nothing wrong with listing people in the alphabetical order.

2. At the beginning of your acknowledgments, thank your teachers because they are the most important people and your main advisors. Sometimes, you may also mention academics who supervised your project, as well as members of the thesis committee.

• Use groups to address a few people in one sentence. For example, write: “I want to thank Dr. Brown, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Addams for their support.”
• If you worked on your project with a small group of people, it makes sense to address everyone, explaining what contribution these people made.

3. Once you’ve finished a list of the most important helpers, list other people who were involved in your project. Include people who made their contribution to your coursework, lab assistants, or even your classmates who helped you in any way.

4. Don’t forget to mention what financial aid you’ve received. If your project was supported by a research group, scholarship organization, or any grant, you should address the organization and list any members of this organization who interacted with you.

5. Include the most emotional and personal words of gratitude at the end of your acknowledgments. It’s better to thank your friends and partners personally. If you want to think your loved one who helped you to get through all the difficulties of the project, don’t be too emotional. Romantic relationships often change with years, so keep it in mind when writing acknowledgments that will be seen by a wide audience.

6. We suggest avoiding personal anecdotes and jokes. Perhaps, you remember some funny things about working with those people, but an academic acknowledgment is not the best place for such memories.

Thank-You Speeches

• You may need to deliver a thank-you speech on stage if you’ve won some award. In this case, you should understand that the audience may not be interested in hearing the whole long alphabetical list of people who’ve helped you. Make sure your speech is 1-2 minutes long. Be concise.
• Perhaps, some of the people who’ve helped you may be present in the audience, so make thanking them your main priority. This will make the ceremony more emotional.
• Tell a short anecdote when thanking somebody who was especially important for your success. However, don’t tell stories about everyone because you should be brief. If you know an interesting story about a few people from your list, it may be also a good choice.
• Use sincere and simple humor. You may feel tempted to start poking fun at some people in the audience, but it’s the worst choice unless you’re a brilliant comedian. Be humble and sincere.

Other Acknowledgments

1. When publishing a novel, poetry, or short stories, it’s important to include a literary acknowledgment page, mentioning periodicals that helped you with your first publications. After the formal addressing of any publications that were important for you, write more personal thanks.

• Just as in the case of academic acknowledgments, it’s very important to mention any sources of financial support. If you received fellowships, grants, or artist residencies, they should be included in your acknowledgment page.
• You may choose a creative approach, writing your acknowledgments in a storytelling and personal manner. For example, write a brief anecdote about everyone you want to thank.

2. If you’ve just dropped an album, you should also be thankful to your friends and people who’ve helped you with writing songs, producing the album, selling copies, etc. Mention members of your family, bands that were involved in recording and songwriting, label staff, and music engineer. Don’t forget about the artists who inspired you or influenced your music style.

3. If you want to thank somebody publicly, we suggest writing individual thank-you notes for them. Any person should know that you’re going to mention them in public, especially when talking about a book.

• Explain what is the event where you’re going to deliver the speech. Explain what you want to thank for, and ask them to approve your thank-you speech or acknowledgment page.

4. Read your thank-you list more than once. Check grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Make sure you correctly spell all the names. Revision and proofreading are also important parts of the writing process, so make sure your acknowledgments are well-written.