The Preliminaries is a Writing Template and includes all those items that precede the main body of a document (located at the front); for example, a dedication, acknowledgements, abstract, preface or executive summary, table of contents, list of figures/tables, list of abbreviations.

Tips 

1. The body word count excludes items in the preliminaries

2. Preliminaries are often referred to as front matter, because it includes items that are in the front of the main writing (body)