While many paratextual elements of a written work can function as signifiers for the primary themes explored within the work, acknowledgment pages can be particularly adept in providing one’s readers with a brief yet comprehensive explanation of the narrative’s primary motifs. And this is why authors who are interested in providing their audiences with a context or background for their work may find the construction of an acknowledgments page both advantageous and appropriate.
Although acknowledgments pages are broadly defined, they tend to be relatively short-from a few paragraphs to two or three pages. Additionally, such pages generally include references to individuals who have somehow played a profound role in contributing to the outline and evolution of the text at hand. In making reference to the form and content of the work in context of how various individuals played a role in constructing it, the reader is afforded an opportunity to gain more information about what subjects the book covers. It is for this reason that acknowledgments pages can be particularly effective for writers who want to provide their readers with an overview that transcends or augments the understanding gained by the audience upon reviewing other data such as an abstract, introduction, or summary printed on the back of the book.
A concrete example of the efficacy that writing an acknowledgments page can have becomes evident upon consideration of a book I am now reading entitled Famine in the Land: A Passionate Call For Expository Preaching. In his acknowledgments page, author Steven J. Lawson cites individuals like Adrian Rogers and W.A. Criswell as “the men who have most shaped [his] understanding of preaching” (13). In so doing, Lawson draws attention to a primary theme of the book: the importance of understanding what constitutes good preaching and why. Lawson then crystallizes the reader’s understanding of what he believes good preaching is upon noting the influence that the expository preaching of John MacArthur has had on him: “His relentless pursuit of the meaning of the biblical text and his passionate preaching of that passage with a God-centered focus has shaped my entire approach to the pulpit” (14). Through this sentence, the reader gains an even more profound awareness of the central motif which Lawson will delineate throughout the text: Good preaching is predicated on making the biblical text central to the message given to the people.
Like Lawson, I have constructed an acnknowledgments page in a manner that reveals the primary theme of my work. This fact becomes plain upon consideration of the acknowledgments page that I wrote for my thesis. In referencing the assistance that a particularly astute professor provided as I went through the research and writing stages of production, I wrote: “…I would like to acknowledge Dr. Paul Voss. Without his vast knowledge of the life and works of William Shakespeare, this thesis would quite likely never have come to completion” (v). In so doing, I alluded to the fact that the thesis was somehow related to the works of Shakespeare. Indeed, the argument I expounded upon throughout the text was predicated on analyzing contiguities and disparities between representations of gender-based identity in three Shakespearean plays.
As made plain by the aforementioned examples, writing an acknowledgments page can be a good idea for individuals who want to provide their readers with a brief overview of what their work concerns. For this reason, I encourage writers who wish to provide their audience with this type of information to carefully consider constructing one when finalizing the publication process for their book or thesis.
Source:
Lawson, Steven J. Famine in the Land: A Passionate Call For Expository Preaching. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2003.
Print.
Jocelyn Crawley is in the process of attaining her Masters of Divinity with preparation to become a pastor. She holds B.A. degrees in English and Religious Studies. Her work has appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician, Nailpolish Stories, Visceral Uterus, Four and Twenty, Dead Beats and Haggard and Halloo. Other stories are forthcoming in Faces of Feminism and Calliope.
