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The Proper Way To Write And Format A Dissertation Dedication

After spending months conducting in-depth research, creating outlines, and drafting version after version of a dissertation – one might begin to agonize over one more detail: The dedication in dissertation. Fortunately, the dedication is actually pretty simple to write in comparison to all other sections of the dissertation, and can be done in a matter of a few hours. It’s pretty straightforward but there are still a handful of things one should consider. Here’s what you need to know about properly writing and formatting a dedication of dissertation.

What Exactly is the Dedication and What Does it Accomplish?

Most published works have a dedication page which can include a quote from another resource or a direct message to someone who is or has played an important part to the author’s life. The same concept applies to academic works. You can see from various dissertation dedications examples that students will credit or give recognition to someone who has been inspirational or has been of assistance at some point in these students’ lives.

Choosing Someone You’d Like to Dedicate the Work To

The person you choose to dedicate your work to is entirely up to you, but if you review any other dissertation dedication sample you will see that with most academic works a student will usually give credit to his or her advisor as well as to any agency that may have helped in providing resources to conduct the research. Additionally, if a student feels their passion for a discipline is the result to someone else in their lives, you may see a short sentence dedicating the work to that certain someone.

Reviewing Several Samples of a Well-Written Dedication

It’s pretty simple to review several samples because you simply don’t have to do a lot of reading. I myself read about a dozen or so and even borrowed some ideas to come up with different ways to appropriately express my thanks to family members and the dedicated department staff at my university. I recommend you head down to the library and check out a short stack of dissertations and quickly scan through the dedications made in them.

Formatting the Dissertation Dedication Correctly

Finally, the easiest part: formatting the dissertation dedication page. A dedication will only be a few sentences long and sit on a separate page to any other part of the document. Use the same type face and font size as the rest of the document, and be sure to set the dedication about one third down the page. That’s all there is to it.

Including a short dedication to any funding agencies, advisors, and even family members is a great way of expressing one’s gratitude for any assistance in the completion of this capstone project. However, there are some institutions that discourage “run of the mill” comments. In lieu of a personal comment you can consider using dissertation dedicate quotes, which are more general but still express a kind gesture. Either way, always check to see what your graduate department office says about this and stick to any requirements or guidelines and don’t hesitate to review several dissertation dedication examples for more ideas.

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