Before you start writing the cover letter, please check the Authors Guide if a cover letter is required, as some scientific journals don’t ask for it any longer. The cover letter is addressed to the journals’ editor who handles your submission and decides whether it is send out to reviewers, so you need to explain in a few words why the journal should publish your scientific manuscript. The description must therefore contain a short summary of the content of your study and what makes your study so great and unique, but also explain why your manuscript should be published in this special journal. Depending on the journal the cover letter might also need to contain the following information.
Reviewers and Statements
List of potential reviewers
Here you need to list 2-5 scientists that are working in the field of your research topic, so they could review your manuscript. Usually, it is required that none of the manuscripts’ authors published with the suggested reviewers for at least 5 years. The reviewers don’t have to be professors or group leaders, it is also o.k. to select Postdocs or people of comparable education. If you are not sure who could fit, check whose scientific research you cited most in your manuscript.
Animal welfare statement
If you worked with animals in vivo, you need to mention the ethical board that approved your study and the animal protocol number. Also mention according to which law you performed your experiments.
Patient consent statement
If your manuscript contains data from human tissue or you worked with patients, you need to mention the patient consent information and the ethical board that approved your study.
More Statements
Conflict of interest statement
Here you need to state, who of the authors is employed by a company or receives any other payments from a company that might influence her/his way of presenting the manuscripts data because of potential conflict of interest.
Authors contribution statement
All authors of the study have to be mentioned, stating their contribution to the manuscript (planning; funding acquisition; supervision; performed, planned, analyzed, interpreted experiments; prepared figures; wrote/edited manuscript etc.). Sometimes this section is part of the submission process and you have to choose from a drop-down list for each author.
Funding statement
You need to list all funding sources that contributed to the study, no matter if for salaries, equipment, or materials. This section is often part of the submission process and you have to choose from a drop-down list of funding options. You also have to provide grant numbers and who is the recipient of each grant.
Submission
If the above-mentioned information doesn’t need to be mentioned in the cover letter, you will probably need to add it to the main manuscript text or provide it during the submission process. So, either way, it is good to prepare the sections accordingly.
The submission process differs strongly between journals, some are asking for a single PDF file containing all sections including figures, others ask for each document separately. The procedure is not always described in the Authors Guide, so when you are ready to submit your manuscript, plan enough time for the submission process, it might take you somewhere between 30 minutes to up to almost a day to complete.
The submission process, including revision, is easiest when done by the corresponding author as some journals limit the communication to the corresponding author after submission. If you are not the corresponding author you might thus not see the manuscript in your journal account after you submitted it. Other journals inform each author equally by email updates.
Please be prepared to provide the full name, title(s), affiliation(s), email address, (and ORCID number) of each author. The corresponding author sometimes also needs to provide a phone number.
Each figure usually needs to be provided separately as TIFF (images) or PNG (line graphs) file with a good resolution. Check the Authors Guide if figures need to be in CMYK or RGB color format. While figures are uploaded as separate files, figure legends are listed at the very end of the main manuscript.
The main manuscript is usually provided as Word document. Please make sure to convert the document in plain text so it is not linked to your reference program any more.
Supplementary figures are usually provided as a PDF file including the figure legend placed directly below the figure. Please check the Authors Guide if each supplementary figure needs to be provided as a separate PDF file or if all figures are provided together in one PDF file. Often, the file(s) needs to be named specifically, like “Supplementary figure”, “Additional file” or else. When changing the name according to the journals’ requirements, make sure to also change it in the main manuscript.
After submission of your scientific manuscript, be patient, it might take up to 3 months before you receive a first response from the journal.
Today’s conclusion about the cover letter and submission:
I:
Write a convincing cover letter
II:
Provide all information and files requested during submission
