In the
creative arts and
scientific literature, an acknowledgement (also spelled acknowledgment in
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
and
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ( ...
) is an expression of a gratitude for assistance in creating an original work.
Receiving
credit by way of acknowledgement rather than authorship indicates that the person or organization did not have a direct hand in producing the work in question, but may have contributed funding, criticism, or encouragement to the author(s). Various schemes exist for classifying acknowledgements; Cronin et al.
give the following six categories:
#
moral support
#
financial support
#
editorial support
#
presentational support
#
instrumental/technical support
# conceptual support, or peer interactive communication (PIC)
Apart from
citation
A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...
, which is not usually considered to be an acknowledgement, acknowledgement of conceptual support is widely considered to be the most important for identifying intellectual debt. Some acknowledgements of financial support, on the other hand, may simply be legal formalities imposed by the granting institution. Occasionally, bits of science humor can also be found in acknowledgements.
There have been some attempts to extract
bibliometric indices from the acknowledgments section (also called "acknowledgments
paratext")
of research papers to evaluate the impact of the acknowledged individuals, sponsors and funding agencies.
Spelling
The spelling ''acknowledgement'' is used in
British English,
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...
, and other English-speaking areas outside North America, whereas the spelling ''acknowledgment'' (without the ''e'' after the ''g'') is often used in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
and
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ( ...
.
See also
*
Acknowledgment index
*
Attribution (copyright)
*
Billing (filmmaking)
*
Byline
*
Closing credits
*
Credit (creative arts)
In general, the term credit in the artistic or intellectual sense refers to an acknowledgment of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.
Credit in the arts
In the creative arts, credits are an acknowledg ...
*
Opening credits
In a motion picture, television program or video game, the opening credits or opening titles are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen ...
*
Possessory credit
*
Signature block
A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file, .sig, dot sig, siggy, or just sig) is a personalized block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an email message, Usenet article, or forum post.
Email and Usenet
...
*
Title sequence
*
WGA screenwriting credit system
References
{{Book structure
The arts
Writing
Academic publishing
Collaboration