THE THANKING MOVE

Showing thanks: People and/or organisations that helped

The thanking move is not just about thanking those that helped. Clearly, you don't want to miss those people out, but since you're supervisor and/or tutor will be reading and/or marking your dissertation, it's important to thank them properly. You should even do this if your supervisor is useless or close to useless; there are many such cases, unfortunately. Where this happens, dig deep and just make the 'thank you? a simple one. However, if you're one of the lucky ones and have a lot of people to thank, the thanking move involves two components: (1) identifying who to thank and (2) explaining how they helped you. Whether you put this into a single paragraph or multiple paragraphs is up to you, but students tend to either: (a) thank people one at a time, explaining what each person did; or (b) focus on how people helped (e.g., reading over drafts, giving moral support, providing financial aid, etc.) and include which individuals helped. It is much less common to see students thanking people based on how these individuals helped them within each part or chapter of the dissertation. This part of the acknowledgments section should probably be around 70% of the total (or 60% if you include an announcing move). So based on a 100 to 200 word acknowledgments section, you may want to write between 70 and 140 words.

The thanking move involves five steps: (a) write a list of the people that helped you; (b) explain how each person and/or organization helped; (c) decide what order to thank people in; (d) be strategic, thanking key people, even if you feel they let you down in some way; and (e) think about ways to express your thanks.

STEP ONE
Write a list of the people that helped you

Some of the people and/or organisations that may have helped you include:

• Dissertation supervisors

  You may have been allocated a supervisor(s) at the start of the dissertation process or during the marking stage. The supervisor is often the person that guides you through the dissertation process or is simply involved in marking the dissertation when submitted.

• Your personal tutor

  Sometimes your personal tutor is also one of your supervisors. However, even if this is not the case, if your personal tutor is active in supporting you, this person should be included.

• Other academics

  Supervisors and tutors are not always specialists in the subject that you are researching. If you have sought advice from subject specialists within or outside of the department (or even from a different university) it may be worth mentioning this. In some cases, it can lend credibility to your dissertation if an academic expert has provided advice or read through your work.

• Organizations

  Organizations are often accessed in management research, but also in many other fields. If these organizations have provided you with access to research participants, funding, or some other support, they should be mentioned.

• Research participants

  Thanking research participants is a tricky one. For ethical reasons, you may not be able to identify who these people were, but they should still be thanked, especially if one of the outcomes of the dissertation is a report that they may read. If ethics allow, you may want to identify particularly helpful people by name.

• Financial sponsors

  Some undergraduate and master's dissertations are sponsored in some way. Whilst often sponsorship is from family members, if you have been lucky enough to be sponsored by an organization, it is very important to mention this.

• Outsource providers

  You are sometimes permitted to seek external helped during the dissertation process. This can include the use of a professional proof reader (or other external advisors), a data entry person and/or transcriptionist, a statistics expert, and so forth. It is vital that acknowledgement to such individuals and/or organizations is provided. To avoid accusations of plagiarism and/or cheating, make sure you detail exactly how these individuals helped.

• Copyright permissions

  Whilst few students doing a dissertation at the undergraduate or master's level seek permission to use lengthy volumes of text, certain tables and diagrams, pictures and so forth, in their work, you should really try and do this. This is certainly the case if you wish to self-publish your dissertation or have it appear within a database such as Master's Abstracts International (MAI). If you have attained permissions, mention those individuals and/or organizations that have given you permission. If you are confused or unsure how to proceed, always refer to the dissertation guidelines provided by your department.

• Family and friends

  Students sometimes like to thank family and friends.

• God

  This is a very personal choice, but if it is important to you, include it.