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I have been working on my bachelors thesis for 10-11 months now and am about to hand it in. Without bragging, my topic was by far harder and more work than most bachelor theses.

Now I am wondering whether I should add an inscription to my parents in it. I really want to show that I am grateful for giving me the opportunity to study. Now I have read up on some advice on the internet saying that I probably shouldn't do it because bachelor theses are generally only meant for a small amount of people.

With my thesis this is different as I am planning on releasing at as a documentation of my work (my bachelor thesis was to write an improved version of an existing API).

What do you think?

EDIT:

I am talking about a short "To my parents." on a separate page in the beginning.

EDIT2:

Please remember, a Bachelor thesis is different to a dissertation.

Martin Braun
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    Would you mind providing a link to said "advice on the internet saying that you probably shouldn't do it"? It sounds like there's been some misunderstanding. It sounds like very strange advice. – aparente001 Sep 05 '15 at 20:39
  • it is in german if that's okay to you i can try to find it again. – Martin Braun Sep 05 '15 at 20:55
  • Yes, please, I can ask my German spouse for help if need be. – aparente001 Sep 05 '15 at 20:57
  • Now that I think about it, the links are from bad sources. Anyways, I guess it's probably best to hand in the version without the inscription and keep it for a released version. – Martin Braun Sep 05 '15 at 21:47
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    I don't get it! The inscription doesn't do any harm; you and your parents will all derive good feelings from it; no one will mind; and if you look at other theses, you'll see inscriptions that thank everyone from the kindergarten teacher to the lady at the laundromat around the corner. – aparente001 Sep 05 '15 at 21:49
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    I think that the rules for dissertations apply here: namely, unless it's expressly forbidden by your university's rules, it's fine to include dedication and acknowledgment pages. – aeismail Sep 06 '15 at 19:23

3 Answers3

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If you want to dedicate your bachelor thesis to somebody, or acknowledge people: by all means, just do it!

It is your thesis, after all.

Danny Ruijters
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Our thesis format explicitly reserves space for dedication after the title page.

vonbrand
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A title page dedication may come across as a little pretentious.

I would recommend an acknowledgements section at the back. This is a more traditional way of thanking anybody who helped out, and it's a perfectly normal thing to have in any kind of thesis. You can also use that to thank your supervisor, your friends who helped to proofread, and anybody else you like. This also allows you to state why you want to thank your parents, which may make it a bit more meaningful.

Peter Bloem
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