What’s acknowledgement?
“Acknowledgement” section is a page where you express your gratitude to people who helped your paper, thesis or dissertation. It is usually included in the beginning of a paper, or often as a footnote in a journal paper. If your paper is going to be published in a journal, it is safe to check the style of previous papers in the journal.Acknowledgement is not an obligatory component of a paper. However, it would be a good opportunity to thank people around you. At the same time, if names of experts are listed, this would be an indication that your work is checked by an authority in your field(of course, this is just a minor aspect of acknowledgement).
Who should I list and in what order?
Careful thought is needed to decide the order of listing people. If you write an acknowledgment section for your dissertation, main supervisor should be mentioned first. Then, list second supervisor(s), other professors who gave comments and insights to your work, etc. :- Main supervisor
- Second supervisor(s)
- Other professors who gave comments and insights to your work
- Company or Grant name if your work is financially supported by them
- Reviewers of the paper*
- Participants in a survey or experiment
- Family and Friends
*Usually reviewer’s names are not public. In such a case, you can thank them as “anonymous reviewers” for their comments and suggestions.
Please note that it is sometimes required to state the name of grants or company (if your work is supported by them). For example, Japanese Kakenhi (Japanese national research grant) requires researchers to indicate the grant number in the acknowledgement section as:
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JPxxxxxxxx,JPyyyyyyyy,JPzzzzzzzz.
For more information about Kakenhi, please visit this page.
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