Help please - acknowledging COVID-19 in thesis

[MadameSapphire]

Currently writing up PhD thesis and it feels necessary (due to particular impact of COVID-19 on industry I am writing about) to acknowledge the pandemic.

I have written a short account and have called it the ‘preface’, placing this before my introduction. However, I’m not sure preface is the right name? This piece needs to sit outside (and before) the introduction, but does anyone have any ideas as to what I could call it?

Happy to explain further if this doesn’t make enough sense!

Thanks.

Could you not put it as part of your acknowledgments?

I would use preface if it is informing the reader of the scope and context of the research, I.e. before Covid. Acknowledgements if you are just saying you are sorry it has happened.

Thank you, @prolefeed and @Phphion. Considering what you’ve said, I think it makes sense to keep it as a preface. It details the effect of coronavirus on the industry and how/why I will draw on these briefly in the introduction. My concern is that the research has been carried about and, almost wholly, written prior to COVID-19, and yet I feel it crucial that it is mentioned. My instinct is that it works as the preface - I was worried as it doesn’t do everything that a preface might (but many of the things are fulfilled in the introduction). Thanks again.

I just examined a PhD submitted in the middle of lockdown, and this was mentioned in the Acknowledgements.

Has C-19 and lockdown etc affected your research in terms of case studies, library access, field work? If so then that is germane to the actual research and needs to be discussed in as much detail as is necessary, in your Introduction.

If what C-19 did was to affect you as it has affected all of us - which could be a whole range of different responses - then I don't see it needs anything more than a mention in the acknowledgements.

Thanks @CatandtheFiddle. It’s a tricky one - case studies and fieldwork completed some time ago and the fact that I can’t currently access a few paper publications will, hopefully, be resolved in the next few months. The particular industry I focus on has been so massively affected by C-19 that it seems necessary that detailing this has its own spot - placing it as a preface both separates and connects it to the work, which seems right! I’ve added a section in the intro related to C-19 as lockdown has brought about some pertinent behaviours re. the topic I’m researching and discussing this adds to the argument for its value.

Could you have an Author's Note?

I would include it in the preface but maybe also as part of the limitations of your research, within the discussion section.

Thanks @SarahAndQuack and @TeeBee. @SarahAndQuackI did consider making it an Author’s Note, but I don’t think the content fits with the usual content of such a note. @TeeBee, thank you - that idea makes really good sense to me.

Fair enough. Good luck with it all.

Thanks @SarahAndQuack. 😊