You know what I’m referring to. You’ve encountered it at the start of every scholarly book: the acknowledgments page. And, you know that there is an standard formula that goes a little something like this:

1. Acknowledge that the book began as a dissertation at Fancy Pants Graduate Program and list the names of all Big Shot Professors on your dissertation committee, inferring a greater degree of comradery and support than you ever got from them.
2. Be sure to also name fellow graduate students, but only those who have been successful, repressing all mention of those who never finished their PhDs or who “just” got jobs at teaching schools.
3. Acknowledge colleagues from First Job School, where you went because Big Shot Professors failed to warn you that the job market was terrible and that not everyone would be as rivited by your jargon-laden and super specialized research topic as they were.
4. Acknowledge Small Research Grant you received from First Job School, that they gave you because they were worried that you were going to flee the coop, which you did, using Small Research Grant to pad your CV.
5. Trumpet the fact that you now teach at Big Shot U. and list every single Important Person you met there, from those that shook your hand at university functions to those that you slept with, so that everyone will know who you know and that you are a member of the elite cabal in your little corner of academia. Do your best to infer that all of these people contributed in some ways to your book, either by nodding absent-mindedly while you pontificated about it or by inviting you to be on conference panels with other cool academics, where you all looked really cool in your expensive and trendy suits, creating a little blackhole of coolness that everyone in the audience envied.
6. Mention that being at Big Shot U. also got your foot in the door for Prestigious Fellowship which gave you a year off to sit in coffeeshops and look like you were thinking deep thoughts while actually checking email every 5 minutes and wondering why no one was emailing you to be on more panels or to contribute to their collections.
7. Try to insert sentimental acknowledgement here to try to make you sound like a human being and not just a scheming academic climber — perferably to an inspirational third grade teacher, a family member who died before they could see the project in its published glory, or maybe a loyal pet.
8. Use the word “finally” to indicate that you are getting to the personal stuff and express your love in gushingly inappropriate or ickily sacchrine terms to your spouse or partner, and to your assorted children named after literary characters, being sure to state that your life would be meaningless without them.

Whatever you do, do not suggest that writing the book made you want to kill yourself several times over and that you think anyone who reads it must be pretty desperate, maybe trapped on a desert island with only your crummy little academic monograph about the price of peas in 17th C Bourgoyne. You know that if you were trapped on an desert island with only your book to read you would absolutely kill yourself, but only after you had a good laugh over the complete fabrication that is your acknowledgments page.

Shout out to Mouse at Notes of a Neophyte for inspiring this rant with her hilarious — and terrifyingly accurate — mock grad application essay.