When you submit a paper to a scientific journal, you also need to send a cover letter to the editor of the journal. This is the first contact you will get with the editor, and is sometimes a deciding point in the process. The editor will choose, based on this letter and the abstract of your article, to further read your manuscript or not. It is thus extremely important to send a letter that will encourage the editor to consider your paper for publication. Here are three fundamental pieces of information I suggest you explain in your cover letter:
- First you should start by briefly presenting yourself and your group of research, as well as the reason why you are writing the letter in the first place. You can for example explain who you are, where you come from, what does your lab focus on. Next you could explain a bit your study, why you did it, what was the state of the art, if it is related to other studies you already conducted and published (if so in which journal), if it is a collaboration between various groups, if it confirms results already published in this journal, etc.
- Second, you should summarize your most important findings. Explain what you did and what you found, why are your results interesting, what do they bring compared to what was already described, why are your study is special, what is especially striking about the methodology you used. For example, is your study the first in a French population? Is it the study with the highest number of subjects tested in breast cancer? Is it bringing new and valuable information in the field of stroke, why?
- Third, you should define the applications of your work. In other words, why does it matter, what is it changing in the world, is it bringing a new cure for cancer? Is it helping find a new pathway for the investigation of a cure? Can it give benefits to anyone? Show that your work actually means something and that it is valuable for a large number of people.
With these points, you should cover basically everything the editor needs to know.
Avoid copy/pasting the abstract and don’t write a letter more than one page long and you should be pleased with the result!
If you need help writing the letter, I compiled here some examples of cover letters you can use as templates to prepare your own letter.
The pack consists of two awesome templates and two real-life examples and costs only 3€. You can use one of the templates to send the manuscript and another one to send your answer to the reviewers.
Click on the buy now button to download the cover letter templates pack!
You can also contact us and we’ll be more than happy to help you!!
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