Writing an Acknowledgement Page in the Dissertation

One thing you'll have to do near the end of your dissertation writing days is to come up with an acknowledgement page.  This can be a tough thing to write, but it's your chance to put some real personality into your writing.

Even though you might feel
like this near the end of the
dissertation process, try to
refrain from thanking your
dissertation directly as if it
were a human being.  Save
the crazy for after tenure.

If you haven't really thought about writing the acknowledgement page yet, but it's getting close, I'd recommend checking out a few recent dissertations and seeing what THEY wrote.  You'll likely read some that you think are horrible/boring/sterile, and some that are really touching/interesting/funny.  It's really up to you whether you want to go with the standard business-like thank yous or make it more personal, though I recommend the latter.

So, once you decide the type of page you want to write, you have to come up with a list of people to thank.
Here's some ideas that might help you remember everyone who helped you along the way.

1. Your dissertation advisor/committee -- Obviously these are the people that worked with you to get your dissertation finished, and in my opinion they should be either the first people you thank in the acknowledgments, or the last people you thank.  I went with first, saving the last thank yous for my family.  You should single out your dissertation advisor (DA) from the other committee members (CMs), as the DA likely put the most effort into your dissertation compared with the other CMs.

2. Your other 'advisors' in the program.  You may have been assigned an advisor early on in your Ph.D. program that ended up not becoming your DA, or even a CM, but provided a lot of early advice and encouragement.  If so, they should be included in your acknowledgements.  If they are one of your CMs, then single them out in addition to your DA, and if they are you DA, then be sure to mention the non-dissertation support they provided for you.

3. The other faculty you frequently bugged for help.  When I was in the Ph.D. program, there were a few faculty that I frequently bothered for advice on a number of topics, despite having no formal mentor/mentee relationship with them.  The advice ranged from detailed methodological/statistical advice to inform career advice.  I'm sure by the time I was ready to graduate, they had developed an inadvertent eye-twitch whenever they heard me knocked on their door and/or start a conversation with the phrase: "So I've got a quick question for you..."  Even though they may not have directly helped on my dissertation, they still helped me navigate life as a Ph.D. student, and so they deserve to be thanked.

4. The staff you bugged for help.  There is likely at least one staff member who not only knew you by name, but did things above and beyond the call of duty to help you out.  This might have involved helping you file all of the misc. paperwork for a grant application at the last minute, helping find you a last-minute assistantship position to keep your health insurance in tact, or even printing on their fancy high-quality laser printer 20 sheets of stick-on beer labels for your newly brewed batch of Maple Ale.  If anything like this applies to a staff member know you, then you should thank them.

There's a reason the show wasn't
just called Garfield. Dude needed
help filling the other 15 minutes.

5. Your friends.  The Ph.D. program can be very isolating and lonely.  If you're lucky, you will find a tight-knit group of friends to commiserate with, whether they are part of the program or not.  Even if they don't know the first thing about your research and never read a draft, they had a small part in helping you get through the program and finish the dissertation.  You should thank them in your acknowledgement page (by name for at least some, with a catch all 'all others who I haven't yet thanked').

6. The people who got you to grad school.  I know that if it weren't for the people who wrote my recommendation letters, I wouldn't have been accepted to the grad program that I graduated from. Therefore, I felt I should thank them for the time they put into me both as an undergrad student of theirs, as well as for the letter writing that they did for my application packet.

8. Other support networks.  If you have other support networks, like a grad student forum that you've used for advice over the years, writing support, etc. don't forget to include them if it makes sense to.

8. Your family.  This is an obvious one, and who you specifically mention will vary based on your own circumstances.  In my own acknowledgement page, I put my family (parents, sibling) next to last, and put my wife last, as I felt the first and last positions held the most importance.


Final thoughts: Finally, just a couple words of wisdom regarding the acknowledgement page.

First, I don't personally believe this is something that your dissertation committee needs to see.  It is personal and doesn't affect the merit of your dissertation work in terms of defensible or not.  So, if you don't feel you want the committee to see this page until after the dissertation is bound and printed, then I see no concerns with slipping it into the dissertation after the final defense and before the final product is sent to the university's graduate office for final approval and publication.  (Your mileage may vary, however).

Second, you should spell check your acknowledgement page very, very, very carefully.  This is because the rest of the dissertation has probably been read dozens of times by various people, but this is something that, probably, very few people will have a chance to read before it's in print.

Dr. Seuss had many friends.
Dr. Seuss liked to use pens.
Those who mattered minded not.
Those who did he f*cking shot.

Third, I think there's nothing wrong with adding some humor to this page.  To crudely paraphrase Bernard Baruch and/or Dr. Seuss, "those who matter won't mind and the rest can go f*ck themselves."  I would much rather have someone read my acknowledgement page and laugh (or cry, if you're my wife -- yes, it was that good/touching/etc.), than have someone read it, shrug, and go "eh, pretty good."

Finally, you should be proud of your acknowledgement page when you're done.  My acknowledgement page, I think, is pretty damn good, as well as interesting, funny, and touching.  Plus, where else in my dissertation could I have used phrases such as "hobo salary," "purchase the 'good' beer that individuals of stature and sophistication drink," "ridiculously strong back muscles," "totally-should-be-subject-to-freedom-of-information-laws-but-it-is-not," "slow-but-steady financial support (one poker game at a time),"  "squeezing the bejesus out of him," "defend myself from an onslaught of up to four enemy samurai," and "zombie apocalypse."
...See, don't you feel at least a little interested in reading my acknowledgement page now?  That's what I was going for.
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Image credits: Hugging_Words, Garfield, Dr. Seuss,

Watch out for the post defense blahs!

So this post is a little more serious than some of the previous ones.  Around 4 months ago, I defended my dissertation.  I wasn't really aware of what to expect immediately afterwards, and hopefully this post helps some people who are in a similar boat.

My actual dissertation defense was fairly easy, with no curve balls from the committee or moments of doubt once the defense started.  While I stayed fairly calm in the weeks leading up to the defense, the day before I was ABSOLUTELY. FREAKING. OUT.  I felt that I was going to forget some key piece of my dissertation (like one of my research questions or main findings), and/or that I would completely choke under the pressure.

Everyone I knew who had already gone through it (including my own dissertation committee members) said the defense would be fine, and would be more like a friendly chat about my research and future directions than an actual defense of the work I completed.  While I "heard" what they said, I wasn't able to really internalize it and overcome my self doubt.

I imagine I looked a little like this
during the defense.  I blame coffee.

In any event, I wasn't able to sleep much the night before the defense, and so I went into my defense running on about 2 hours of sleep and a pot of coffee.  Despite being tired to the point of almost falling over, the defense went fine, and I became a 'Dr.' (which, from what I've been told, is conferred upon successful defense, while the 'Ph.D.' usage comes after successful conferral of the degree itself.)

Immediately after the defense, I felt pretty damn good. I was finished, and even if I got hit by a car and killed walking back to the parking lot, I'd go out as a Doctor (sorta).  After going back to my (on-campus) office and receiving some congratulations from coworkers, and calling my wife and my mom, I went home early to crash.  I slept for about six hours, got up, and then felt... well... nothing much.  Maybe a little relieved, but otherwise just sort of empty.  I knew I was basically finished (barring some minor formatting things required by the University beancounters), and was already a 'doctor' in title, but I still just felt a little... blah... if that makes sense.  I had a 'so what' kind of feeling about the successful defense, the culmination of what I'd spent the last 5 years pursuing, and the last 2 years directly working on.

If you DO see a sad
little bubble following
your every move, you
should probably call
a real doctor...

Unfortunately, this 'blah' feeling stuck with me for probably a month or so.  I had occasional flashes of 'F*ck Yeah!' feelings that would last a few minutes or maybe an hour (like after walking across the stage at graduation), but nothing constant like I had imagined prior to the defense.  It wasn't full-blown depression by any means (at least, I didn't see a sad little floating bubble following me).  However, there definitely were occasional feelings of sadness at the 'race' of the dissertation being over, spiked with a little 'Oh Sh*t' feelings at what I needed to do next (i.e., get tenure... eventually...).

After a while, the 'blah' feelings subsided, and were replaced with other feelings and thoughts, like stressing about upcoming deadlines, travel plans, and work, my upcoming cross-country move, and day-to-day things like working on research projects. I began to get more and more excited about other things, too, like submitting (revised) pieces of my dissertation to journals for publishing, planning out my fall syllabus, looking into housing options where I would be moving to, etc.  The feelings that were at the forefront of my thoughts, namely my new status as a doctor, eventually became a feeling in the background of my thoughts, that I now forget about more often than not.  A somewhat similar experience happened after I finished my Master's degree, but it was on a much smaller scale compared to finishing my Ph.D.

I'm writing this blog post not as a review of what everyone always experiences after defending their dissertation, nor is it meant as a warning of impending post-dissertation depression.  I simply want to throw out the idea that you might feel a little 'blah,' a little sad, a little depressed, a little angry, a little scared, or feel nothing much in the days and weeks after you defend.  So, if you know this *might* happen, you can hopefully deal with it if it occurs, whether that's by surrounding yourself with friends and family, going on a relaxing trip, diving into your next project, rewarding yourself with a post-defense gift, or even talking with a professional if need be.

Now that it's been about 4 months since I defended, on a typical day I usually don't remember that I'm a Doctor/Ph.D. unless something or someone reminds me (like when someone refers to me as 'Doctor.')  While I'm very proud of my accomplishment, 'being a Doctor' doesn't define who I am as much as I thought it would. That might change the more time I spend in my new position as an assistant professor, but until that point, I feel I'm just someone that successfully survived the dissertation and made it through the post-defense blahs.

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Picture Credits: Beaker Zoloft_Bubble

How to start getting over perfectionism

One topic that I hear over and over again is how one can get over the OCD/nit-picking/self-doubting that goes on when in a Ph.D. program (especially when writing a dissertation). This also applies to writing individual articles.  I've thought a lot about this in the past, and I've come up with some things that I think could be useful.  Well, at least they worked for me.

This was my first 3 years
in the Ph.D. program...

1. To start with, I fully believe that it takes at least a few years working on something before you stop feeling like a complete dumbass (i.e., that your work is inadequate, that you don't really know what you're talking about, that you'll disappoint people, etc.). For instance, as a new Ph.D. student without a prior MA degree, I felt like a dumbass for the first three years I was in the program. The good news is this will likely pass. Eventually, you'll realize you're the expert on your topic (for me, something just *clicked* one day), and the self-doubt will start to lessen (though I doubt it ever really goes completely away).  To help with these feelings, my advice is to talk with more senior PhD students who have almost completed (or just completed) their dissertations and I'm sure they'll tell you something similar.  (If not, they're probably lying to you.)

I'm finished! Well...
maybe I'll revise my
intro chapter just
ONE more time...

2. Related to #1, talk to others in your program, especially those further along than you! Ask them when they began to feel like an 'expert', when they stopped nit-picking over their writing, etc. Their answers will probably help you realize that 'good enough' is really the mantra of successfully finishing the dissertation. A 150-page 'good enough' dissertation that is successfully defended is worth much, much more than a 600-page behemoth that the student won't ever wrap up and defend out of a fear of missing errors, rewriting sections, etc. 

One rejection! Ah, Ah, Ah!

Two rejection! Ah, Ah, Ah!

This also goes for publishing articles.  At a lecture I attended at the ICPSR summer program regarding the publishing process, a senior poli-sci scholar (with a hefty and impressive CV) noted that he routinely averages 2-3 rejections per paper before it successfully hits in a journal. After I read that, my own (fairly new) rejection-to-R&R average of about 2-1 didn't bother me as much. That said, it still stings every time I get rejected (even editorially, pre-peer-review), and I usually take at least a week before I read the reviews in detail.  Any sooner and I get headaches from clenching my teeth at the obvious stupidity of the reviewers.

This is me standing on top of my
first solo-published article!

Another good example came from a professor I spoke with just before I started writing my dissertation.  He said when he first started in his Ph.D. program, his advisor (a very prestigious scholar in the field) looked at his first attempt at writing a paper and basically said it was a pile of garbage (in not so many words). But also said that that was to be expected for a first attempt. Over time, he got better at it, and now that professor has tenure at one of the top schools in the field. That talk really helped calm my nerves when it came to writing my own stuff.  [Side note: I've also had the "We need to talk..."-talk about my sub par writing in the past, and while it stung at first (really for about a year afterwards), I got over it, and I like to think my writing is at least slightly better than it was.  (Though I'm still not a fan of the 'tough love' school...)]

This is what I imagine all copy
editors look like, including
the constipated expression.

3. Related to #2, my first solo-authored journal publishing experience helped me get over some of the nit picking and worrying. Frankly, the publishing process is full of little fights over what to fix (especially during the R&R process, and then again during the copy editing process). Some of the wording the copy editor chose as a 'fix' was simply atrocious (while probably technically correct, it sounded like sh*t in the real world, at least to anyone but a copy editor). For my first solo-published article, I had a 2+ page list of things that I wanted the copy editor to change BACK to the original wording (proper English be damned!). A friend of mine who recently went through the copy editing process on his article noted that the copy editor ended up changing back only half of a very specific phrase in the manuscript that they had initially 'fixed' incorrectly. He realized this when he received the final (unchangeable) proofs.


There were also some other things for my own first solo-article that I would have liked to address in my publication, but simply didn't have the time or space to attend to without writing an entire second article filled with minutiae. So what ended up getting published was 'good enough', got me a line on my CV (and likely my first job), will get me a little name recognition in the future (hopefully), and I have a solo-published article that I will NEVER, EVER read from beginning to end (for fear of seeing typos, etc.). 

F*ck no I didn't proofread my

acknowledgements page!

4. Related to #3, the dissertation is similar to that process of 'letting go' of perfection. You won't be able to find every typo, I promise. My own (recently finished/submitted) dissertation has one glaring typo on the acknowledgement page ("You're" instead of "Your"... for f*cks sake...), and a misspelled first name of one of my professors that I'm thanking (a "y" where an "i" should be, ugh). This happened because I *only* proofread my acknowledgements page 5 times or so (with 2 outside proof readers), instead of the 20+ re-readings of the main body of my dissertation.


But realistically will anyone notice? Maybe, especially now that I said this on my blog. Will anyone care? Doubtful (even, I assume, the professor whose name I misspelled -- sorry in advance). And if they do care? Well, they can start their complaint letters with "Dear Dr. ...". And that is what counts. I did a dissertation that was good enough to pass (though I like to think it's was/is fairly impressive piece of work), successfully defended it, and now it is likely that no one is going to take the time to read it ever again except for other PhD students of my advisor who are looking for a model of what is passable (and the blog readers who want to see the typos for themselves...).

Good enough!

So, all this boils down to how to cope with the OCD/nit-picking/worrying of writing a dissertation, getting through a program, writing an article, or anything else for that matter.  My advice in a nutshell is to talk to people who you think have conquered this problem, and listen to them talk about their deeply-held insecurities (both former and present) that still are in the back of their mind. You'll realize that 'good enough' writing is just part of the game, and much of your worrying and re-re-revising of things is just wasted energy that you could be using for other more productive things.





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Picture credits: Copyeditor Phone_Guy Garbage_Pile Old_Man Count Dumb_and_Dumber Highway