An acknowledgment is one of the most common types of notarial acts, but it often confuses Notaries. Here are 5 steps to performing an acknowledgment.I'm going to take a minute here and we're going to cover how to properly do an all-purpose acknowledgement for the state of California. An Acknowledgement of Signature or Acknowledgement of Execution is a notary which verifies that a particular person signed a given document. The attached application MUST be typewritten and signed.