Who to thank in acknowledgments?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

This may be a silly question with an obvious answer, idk. Suppose you get (lengthy) comments on your draft that haven't changed your draft in any way. The comments are of the nature "what is the implication on this and that" that seeks to extend the discussion. Should you thank them for their comments? What is the norm here?

Suppose also that some of the commentators are big names in the area. I think this should not matter for the answer, but maybe it does for practical purposes?

Thanks in advance!

Good questions. Another reader, Tam, submitted the following reply:

I believe that the done thing is to thank anyone who gave you comments even if you don't change the draft at all in light of them and even if they are totally useless. And regardless of whether it is indeed the done thing, it is the prudent thing, since omitting the person's name could offend them while as far as I can tell it costs you nothing at all to include them. Anyway, many acknowledgements take the form, "I am very grateful to X, Y, and Z for their comments on earlier drafts of this article". So you don't even have to be on record claiming that you changed the paper.

This seems like good advice to me. However, my own approach is even a bit more inclusive than this. I try to thank anyone who in any plausible way "helped the paper come to fruition", where this is understood in the broadest possible sense. So, in the OP's case, even if the lengthy comments someone provided didn't change the paper in any way, that person still helped: they read the paper and provided comments! Similarly, if I have a helpful conversation with someone, or if someone asks a really good series of questions at a conference, I may single them out for thanks even if they didn't read the paper, and of course I may also thank the broader conference audience too, as many people do. These have always just seemed like kind (and appropriate) things to do. Of course, I suppose an acknowledgement section could become overly long with this approach, but that's never been an issue for me. As for thanking "big names", I've heard anecdotally that people may do this a form of signaling, but whatever may be the case, if the person in question actually helped the paper come to fruition in any meaningful way, then it seems to me appropriate to thank them.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Comments

[Villager]

I think the norm (in my village) is to thank all who commented on the paper. If you ever want someone to read a paper of yours in the future, then you had better thank people, whether their comments led to revisions or not. (IT is not a zero sum game, the thanking business). BUT, you can flag specific people for special thanks, who really helped you in revising the paper so it can get published in a great journal. In one book of mine I explicitly note that a conversation with X led me to write Chapter Y. Y was not in my book until X urged me to address the issue the chapter takes up.

[Mark Herman]

“I try to thank anyone who in any plausible way ‘helped the paper come to fruition,’ where this is understood in the broadest possible sense.”

I’d like to thank LUCA [not Luka, nor that kid on the second floor, but our Last Universal Common Ancestor], whose tireless efforts with nary a complaint made this paper possible.

[Trevor Hedberg]

I've generally thanked (by name) anyone who gave comments on a previous draft or with whom I had a long conversation or email exchange about the subject matter. I'll also thank my presentation audiences (in general terms) and, if applicable, my commentators at the event (by name). Obviously not all comments are of equal quality, but I view this as part of showing respect to the time and effort that others put forward to engage with my work.

Also, while it might go without saying, acknowledge someone regardless of their career status or university affiliation. I still have bad memories of giving detailed comments on a paper at a conference in 2012 and discovering I was not in the acknowledgements when that paper was published a couple years later even though it was obvious the author had changed the paper to respond to my objections. Other people who were at that conference did get acknowledged, which made me wonder if I was excluded just because, say, I was a grad student or from a relatively undistinguished program.

[Assistant Professor]

If thanking anyone who in any plausible way helped the paper come to fruition, how far should we go as academic professionals to point out the labor and contributions that make our work possible? I mean this as a sincere question, to think about what and who we acknowledge and what purpose(s) the acknowledgements serve.

1. If we name other philosophers or audiences or grants that gave us material feedback or funding this functions both to thank them, but to signal something about our own uptake and connection in the profession.
2. But there are all kinds of other people and institutions that help my work come to fruition (the people who emotionally, financially and practically supported and encouraged me to become an academic, the institution that pays my salary, my spouse who does far more of the childcare than I do, the conversations with non-academic friends or the non-academic thing I read that lead me to a new project, etc.).

Part of me want to say that the stuff in #2 is outside the scope or point of acknowledgements, and part of me thinks it would shape the field for the better if we made more explicit the various kinds of goods or benefits that make successful scholars successful (though this still doesn't mean the acknowledgements of a paper are the right place to do this).

[Karl]

Acknowledgements are free and they make people feel appreciated. No one will think less of you if your paper has a bunch of names in the acknowledgements. Be as inclusive as you can. Err on the side of inclusion.

[Jakub]

I see the issue differently. There is something shady about public acknowledgements. A public acknowlegement expresses something else beyond the plain "thank you" - like look at my research network. There is nothing wrong to say someone "thank you, I appreciate your suggestions" in private without informing others. This is, for me, the primary mode of expressing gratitude. A public acknowlegement is more like an Oscar winning speech. Maybe this attitude differs across cultures and regions.

[Tam]

Maybe this would be for its own thread, but I'm curious others agree with Karl's statement that "No one will think less of you if your paper has a bunch of names in the acknowledgements".

[Filippo Contesi]

I disagree that there is anything shady about public acknowledgments. Quite the contrary. The central contribution of a scholarly paper is the ideas it puts forward, which are often partially indebted to others’ input. It is therefore essential that, as much as the paper itself mentioned is attributed to its authors, others’ input also be recognized, at the very least with the names of those who provided it.