This 5-step guide will teach you how to notarize a document that requires an acknowledgement (the most common notarial act). A Washington notary acknowledgment form is used to officially authenticate a signature on a legal document.Get a Washington notary acknowledgment form to validate someone's signature and ensure their purposes for signing are legitimate. The short-form acknowledgment certificate is used when an individual is signing and acknowledging on his or her own behalf. The Washington Notary Acknowledgement forms are documents used to prove the validity of a signature on a legal document. A Washington D.C. notary acknowledgment form verifies that the signatures included on a document are valid. Hello. For an acknowledgment, the signer must personally appear before the Notary with the signed document to acknowledge the signature and be identified. We also encourage you to think about how to say "thank you" in a personal and meaningful way. When should a gift acknowledgment be sent? Acknowledgments out of state—Certificate.