While simple and quite straightforward, the acknowledgment section is very important as it is your opportunity to thank those who supported you personally and professionally; it is where you express your gratitude for individuals, institutions, or resources that contributed to your research.

It is the opportunity to recognize contributions that don't warrant authorship yet helped you in your research. It demonstrates professional courtesy and academic integrity. Although the acknowledgment section has no strict format, you should focus on having a balance between professionalism and sincerity.

While in every part of the paper you avoid using first-person point of view in describing, it is permissible to use it in this section. This is because acknowledgments are not part of the academic work, yet they are something that is a bit more personal.

As mentioned, there may be two main categories: professional and personal. Professional acknowledgments include individuals or entities that contributed to your research; this type is usually prioritized first. Examples include:

• Chairs, supervisors, or defense committees
• Funding bodies or organizations
• Other academics, such as colleagues or cohort members
• Editors, proofreaders, or reviewers
• Librarians, laboratory/research assistants, or study participants

While less common, you may also include personal acknowledgments, where you may mention those who provided emotional support. This may include family or friends, or can even extend to your pets. However, this is, as mentioned, less common than professional acknowledgments.

How to Write the Acknowledgments Section

If you have a supervisor or a mentor, just like the case with ARPL, it is very important to first thank this individual, even if the support was not maximum. Not doing so may make you appear dismissive or ungrateful. As mentioned, although you can be a bit personal, you also need to maintain professionalism; for instance, you need to use their full names with titles. If a collection group helped you, like an organization or institution, you may mention the group name instead of each individual.

After you have identified those you will be thanking, rank them from most to least significant. You would need to organize them into categories. Scribbr suggests distributing into three categories: major, big, and minor thanks.

• Major thanks are for people who were critical to your project success, e.g., advisors, mentors, funders
• Big thanks are for those who offered practical help; this may include your peers or librarians that helped you
• Finally, minor thanks, if originally decided to be included, are more for personal acknowledgments, i.e., those individuals that emotionally supported or encouraged you, such as family members or friends

The following table shows some examples for each category.

Here is an example of an acknowledgment section (retrieved from Scribbr):

Words cannot express my gratitude to my professor and chair of my committee for her invaluable patience and feedback. I also could not have undertaken this journey without my defense committee, who generously provided knowledge and expertise. Additionally, this endeavor would not have been possible without the generous support from the MacArthur Foundation, who financed my research.

I am also grateful to my classmates and cohort members, especially my office mates, for their editing help, late-night feedback sessions, and moral support. Thanks should also go to the librarians, research assistants, and study participants from the university, who impacted and inspired me.

Lastly, I would be remiss in not mentioning my family, especially my parents, spouse, and children. Their belief in me has kept my spirits and motivation high during this process. I would also like to thank my cat for all the entertainment and emotional support.