Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
Writing is a collaborative act. To recognize the people who help us develop our writing, we need to write an “Acknowledgment” at the end. This acknowledgment should let the reader of the essay know who has helped us and how they have helped. You do not have to thank Bill Gates for making Microsoft or let us know how grateful you are to have spell check. However, you do need to be as specific as you can. The following paragraph is a model acknowledgment. Notice the specific detail.
I would like to thank the following people who helped me in the development of this essay: my classmates of 10A, whose suggestions in peer review helped me restructure the essay and whose questions helped me clarify information in the beginning of the piece; my teacher, Kristine Long, whose comments helped me focus just what I was trying to accomplish in the piece and clarified my aim; my mother, Jane Doe, who listened to an early draft of the piece and provided a clear direction for my first revision; my older brother, John, who identified several grammatical errors and helped me fix them; and Susie Goodheart, who listened to this essay several times, always with an attentive ear, and helped me with numerous changes in the final editing stage.
Take some care with the acknowledgments. Please do not submit a final copy of your piece without attention to this part. The acknowledgment deserves a page of its own.