Manuscript acknowledgement for students who helped with lab maintenance I am working on a manuscript for research I performed in graduate school - the first manuscript from my research has been accepted for publication, so I am getting things started for the second one. Anyways, I am thinking about how best or whether to acknowledge other students in the laboratory who were involved in background maintenance work for the project. I have already acknowledged individuals who contributed working space/instrumentation and performed tests that were directly impactful on producing the manuscript. The background work includes items such as washing/drying glassware, being the student who received and started maintenance of microbial cultures that were shipped to us, was involved in discussions with myself and our advisor about the culture medium, etc. One of the students had a similar but different project that required us to use the same type of culture medium, but I prepared all of my own and adapted the process (not the final chemical concentrations) to my needs. It's been a couple of years, and I vaguely recall that somebody may or may not have assisted with sampling one time for the experience. Any advice on how to address these minor/negligible contributions?
Personally, I would be generous with the acknowledgments.
Adding somebody there costs nothing and generates goodwill.
But, check with your advisor.
Part of your advisors job is to mentor you on being a scientists, including cultural norms such as writing acknowledgments.
Perhaps they have their own standards.