dispossession

[truepenny]

Bureaucratic snafu, headache, and lethargy notwithstanding, I have actually made some progress today.

*Gillian Bennett is properly incorporated and making me look smart.

*I've "finished" the coda on Equus.

*The apparatus (title-page, copyright page, epigraph, table of contents) are laid out. This is completely unimportant except that it pacifies the control-freak part of my nature.

*I have a sort of quasi-outline for the conclusion, with a couple bits of actual text in. That paragraph I said I was going to write is proving elusive, but I'm still working.

So here's a question for all of y'all reading this who either are writing or have written a thesis: acknowledgments? dedication? Did you have 'em? Not? Thoughts? Opinions? The format guidelines tell me what to do about them, and so now I'm wondering if I ought to have them.

Now that I think about it, I kind of want to dedicate it to John Webster, because I love his plays and I didn't get to write about them. Uber-geek to the max, that's me.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

My undergrad senior thesis was a policy paper on increasing organ donation, and had an acknowledgments page, which probably it didn't need:

My professor;
People at various organizations who went above and beyond to answer my dumb questions;
A few friends, for letting me bounce ideas off them and keeping me sane;
And my family who inspired the project (dad, transplant recipient; uncle, died waiting).

My major law school paper, when published, had a footnote thanking the professor whose seminar I wrote it for, because he gave me good suggestions about a draft, and my law review editor, because she gave me good suggestions about a rewrite.

Law review articles are generally much more restrained on acknowledgments. My undergrad thesis page was undoubtedly influenced by Chad's PhD thesis acknowledgments, which ran to two pages and were even more diffuse than mine.

I figure, no-one will care what you put, and it's a small enjoyable thing to polish when you're stuck on something else.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Webster! The Duchess of Malfi! I vote that you dedicate it to him. *nods decisively*

Congratulations on all your progress, by the way. I read your dis entries with amazement and wonder. Go you.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The White Devil is even better.

from a thesis editor...

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

Acknowledgements, dedication, epigraph - all optional, and more folks include acknowledgements than not, in the 20-or-so I've tech-reviewed this past year. Some folks leave 'em off, others gush egregiously, most use that as another place to thank significant folks in the process that got you to here.
Uber-geek reasons that make you smile are perhaps the best argument for including dedications and acknowledgements. imho and So very not ex-cathedra. what a surprising & cheering relief to peek over the shoulder of another thesis writer who I"m NOT editing, for a change!

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

I'm still jealous of you, sitting here slogging away on my horrendous major rewrite...

So here's a question for all of y'all reading this who either are writing or have written a thesis: acknowledgments? dedication? Did you have 'em? Not? Thoughts? Opinions? The format guidelines tell me what to do about them, and so now I'm wondering if I ought to have them.

Acknowledgements, at my uni, we have to have--any financial, administrative or academic assistance received during the writing of the thesis (My APA scholarship, for example) must be recorded on the acknowledgements page. It's not recommended to go into personal thanks etc, except to one's supervisor.

Dedications we aren't told about. I presume they're possible, but they would garner a raised eyebrow or three and quiet murmurs about pretentiousness and amateurism. Even the creative-writing mob aren't really supposed to do it. That said,

I kind of want to dedicate it to John Webster

I love this idea! Pretentious amateur, who moi? ~g~ Working at a sandstone University has its down sides...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, I may be rewriting after my orals. So don't get too envious yet.

Your university sounds a little, um, Big Brotherish, really. As far as I can tell, they don't give a rat's ass here.

And how hypocritical is it, to tell you not to do personal thanks, when academic books have acknowledgment pages thanking everyone up to and including the neighbor's dog Skippy?

Of course, the other thing is, it's my dissertation. It doesn't matter if it's pretentious and amateurish, because no one's ever going to look at it anyway. I've about half talked myself into dedicating it to John Webster, i.e., I wrote the dedication, but can still delete it at any moment.

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

Your university sounds a little, um, Big Brotherish, really.

Well, it's more like they've been Big Brothered--the government spends so much time peering over the universities' shoulders these days that they're paranoid about making us toe the line. As far as I can make out, they're scared that if we look like we're having too much fun at this game, they'll get their funding cut again!

how hypocritical is it, to tell you not to do personal thanks, when academic books have acknowledgment pages thanking everyone up to and including the neighbor's dog Skippy?

Yes, but books don't have to jump through the same point-scoring hoops as theses, after all. They can get away with more...

it's my dissertation. It doesn't matter if it's pretentious and amateurish, because no one's ever going to look at it anyway.

~g~ I don't know about you, but I want people to look at my thesis! Even if only after I've rewritten the damn' thing into a book... The 'pretentious and amateurish' thing, I think, stems partly from the slight snob culture associated with this uni, but is also partly a deparmental attempt by we few, beleaguered research scholars to squelch the creative writers who're taking over the place by the score these days...

I say keep the dedication--it's perfect.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Of course, the other thing is, it's my dissertation. It doesn't matter if it's pretentious and amateurish, because no one's ever going to look at it anyway.

Possible but unlikely. I've had to purchase three dissertations from UMI because they weren't developed into books; I needed them for more than the three-week slot granted by inter-library loan. I don't even know anymore how many I've consulted in the library and requested via ILL. Maybe I'm a freak for reading other people's dissertations--admittedly my field is a bit obscure, and some of those theses are from the 19th century--but I think diss-consultation happens often enough.

By all means, dedicate it to John Webster. And I'd agree with other comments that it's pleasing to have an acknowledgements page to fiddle with.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I thought I wasn't going to do a dedication, but in the end I couldn't resist, so I did a very short one: "To Michael, my foundation."

I had a page of acknowledgements. I thanked, with laudatory but somewhat formal explanations, my advisor, the two physicians who ensured me subject access plus their unnamed staffs, my undergrad research assistants, the secretary for the departmental clinic (who went above and beyond the call of duty in helping me), and the funding agency.

I wouldn't leave acknowledgements out.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

I found the dedication was like the chocolate on the hotel pillow - small, sweet and the treat bit of it!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Dedicate it to Webster.

What else has anyone given him recently?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

A part in Shakespeare in Love ?

[heresluck]

A really funny part, no less. I get this huge grin on my face just thinking about it.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Yes, but what a part!

That made me laugh in a kind of outraged way. "I liked Titus Andronicus!" He was so horrible. And his mouse was so -- ugh.

I think he's like your dis better.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

*The apparatus (title-page, copyright page, epigraph, table of contents) are laid out. This is completely unimportant except that it pacifies the control-freak part of my nature.

Also, it's a time-consuming task that's best when NOT left to the last minute. One less thing to worry about later.

Now that I think about it, I kind of want to dedicate it to John Webster, because I love his plays and I didn't get to write about them. Uber-geek to the max, that's me.

Do it! Dedications have to come from the gut.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

My PhD thesis acknowledged my family and friends who had helped keep me sane through it, and various people who had made it easier for me to do it in a somewhat unorthodox way.

I didn't actually find the quote it should have had as an epigram until later, which is:

"It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate."
-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Acknowledgements definitely. In historical theses, it's considered essential to mention all the archives and research libraries one has worked in and their very helpful archivists... Anyone who has been relevantly helpful/stimulating/provocative. And why not a dedication.