Formatting Undergraduate Dissertation Acknowledgements In The Turabian Style


Turabian, despite its exotic sounding name is just another writing style, no more interesting to use than MLA or APA. If you are writing an undergraduate dissertation, your professor and other teaching staff may require you to present your work in this format. The acknowledgment section may be the easiest part of that exercise but if you’re unsure of how to put it together, here are some easy tips:

  • Purchase the guide booklet
  • You do not have to start out knowing all the rules. Go to the campus bookstore and buy the guidelines. This single purchase will allow you to refer to the rules whenever you want and highlight relevant instructions at your leisure. You can even recover some of the cost of this investment by reselling the book after you graduate if you don’t intend to keep it as a memento of your studies.

  • Borrow one
  • Not having money is no excuse for not getting your hands on the Turabian rules. You should be close enough friends with at least one person in your class to gain access to the book. If not, the campus library should have a few copies. Even if you aren't allowed access to them for very long, make notes so you will always be able to refer to the points that matter most to you.

  • Acquire a template
  • This is the most useful tip on the list. It works best if you have the rule book to refer to but if you don’t, a good template can still yield a very good result. Just make sure that your template is good enough.

  • Find sample papers in that style
  • The best part about only needing help with one section of a paper is that you can find incomplete samples and still get what you need out of them. Full samples can cost you money to access, especially if they are of the highest quality. Acknowledgments should be very easy to acquire.

  • Get help
  • There are sites that will help you with formatting. A small fee will provide you with the assistance of a professional. You can ask a friend to provide the same service for free but you never know if they will be busy when you need them.

The Acknowledgment section is often overlooked but it is a way of expressing gratitude so be sure to give it the proper respect.