Retrieved from: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/26708261; http://muchong.com/html/201401/6920446.html
1. What is a cover letter?
Cover Letter, or submission letter, is a letter sent to the editor along with the paper when the paper is submitted. Its purpose is to allow the editor to briefly understand the basic situation of your article before reading your paper. The cover letter is the editor’s first impression of the paper, and it is also an important basis for initially judging whether your paper can be accepted by the journal (if the editor has no interest at all after reading the cover letter, there will be no following), so the writing of the cover letter is very important. How to capture the editor's heart with concise and concise language is the most critical point when writing a Cover letter!
2. What should the cover letter contain?
A complete Cover letter generally contains the following content:
A. The name of the journal editor (use Dear editor if you don’t know who the editor is);
B. The title of the
submitted article C. The type of the submitted article (Letter, communications, article, review) Or comments)
D. Introduction to the article , including: (1) research background; (2) important findings of the paper; (3) reasons why the paper can be published in the journal: the places that arouse readers’ interest, the fit with the journal, etc.
E. The disclaimer of the manuscript publishing ethics (this part will be confirmed by many journals when submitting the manuscript on the website, and it may not appear in the cover letter) and whether there are special handling requirements for the manuscript (generally referring to blocking certain competitors from becoming reviewers )
F. author information : generally corresponding author's name, affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, email, etc.
G. reviewers recommended list (Note: At present, many magazines have been moved to this part of the hosting site system, Cover letter Can no longer be listed in)
3. Cover letter for the first submission: The main task is to introduce the main innovations of the article and declare that there is no more than one manuscript.
Dear Editors:
We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled “Paper Title”, which we wish to be considered for publication in “Journal Name”. No conflict of interest exits in the submission of this manuscript, and manuscript is approved by all authors for publication. I would like to declare on behalf of my co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. All the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed.
In this work, we evaluated …… (简要介绍一下论文的创新性). I hope this paper is suitable for “Journal Name”.
The following is a list of possible reviewers for your consideration:
1)Name A E-mail: ××××@××××
2)Name B E-mail: ××××@××××
We deeply appreciate your consideration of our manuscript, and we look forward to receiving comments from the reviewers. If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me at the address below.
Thank you and best regards.
Yours sincerely,
××××××
Corresponding author:
Name: ×××
E-mail: ××××@××××
4. Dunning letter: inquire about the manuscript processing to the statement step
Dear Prof. ×××:
Sorry for disturbing you. I am not sure if it is the right time to contact you to inquire about the status of my submitted manuscript titled “Paper Title”. (ID: 文章稿号), although the status of “With Editor” has been lasting for more than two months, since submitted to journal three months ago. I am just wondering that my manuscript has been sent to reviewers or not?
I would be greatly appreciated if you could spend some of your time check the status for us. I am very pleased to hear from you on the reviewer’s comments.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Best regards!
Yours sincerely,
××××××
Corresponding author:
Name: ×××
E-mail: ××××@××××
5. Revised Cover letter
Dear Dr/ Prof…（写上负责你文章编辑的姓名，显得尊重，因为第一次的投稿不知道具体负责的编辑，只能用通用的Editors）:
On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Paper Title”. (ID: 文章稿号).
We have studied reviewer’s comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.
We would like to express our great appreciation to you and reviewers for comments on our paper. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and best regards.
Yours sincerely,
××××××
Corresponding author:
Name: ×××
E-mail: ××××@××××
6. Respond to the reviewer's comments on the revised manuscript (the most important part)
List of Responses
Dear Editors and Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Paper Title” (ID: 文章稿号). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:
Responds to the reviewer’s comments:
Reviewer #1:
1.Response to comment: (……简要列出意见……)
Response: ××××××
2.Response to comment: (……简要列出意见……)
Response: ××××××
。。。。。。
Answer one by one, and avoid any omissions. For
different questions, the following polite terms can be used appropriately:
We are very sorry for our negligence of ………
We are very sorry for our incorrect writing ………
It is really true as Reviewer suggested that……
We have made correction according to the Reviewer's comments.
We have re-written this part according to the Reviewer's suggestion
As Reviewer suggested that……
Considering the Reviewer's suggestion, we have ……
Finally, thank you for this reviewer people's opinion:
Special Thanks to you for your Good comments.
of Reviewer # 2:
with above
of Reviewer # 3:
××××××
Other Changes:
1.Line 60-61, at the statements of "......" were corrected AS " …………"
2.Line 107, "……" was added
3.Line 129, “……” was deleted
××××××
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper.
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
7. After accepting the article, you can consider thanking the editor or editor in charge of your article (as needed)
Dear Prof. ××××××:
Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on publication of our paper. On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our great appreciation to editor and reviewers.
Thank you and best regards.
Yours sincerely,
××××××
Corresponding author:
Name: ×××
E-mail: ××××@××××
8. Ask about proofread letter (if it takes a long time after the article is accepted)
Dear ×××:
Sorry for disturbing you. I am not sure if it is the right time to contact you to inquire about the status of our accepted manuscript titled “Paper Title” (ID: 文章稿号), since the copyright agreement for publication has been sent to you two months ago. I am just wondering that how long I can receive the proof of our manuscript from you?
I would be greatly appreciated if you could spend some of your time for a reply. I am very pleased to hear from you.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Yours sincerely,
××××××
Corresponding author:
Name: ×××
E-mail: ××××@××××
9. Article proofread letter
Dear Mr. ×××:
Thanks very much for your kind letter about the proof of our paper titled “Paper Title” (ID: 文章稿号) for publication in “Journal Name”. We have finished the proof reading and checking carefully, and some corrections about the proof and the answers to the queries are provided below.
Corrections:
1.In ****** should be **** (Page , Right column, line)
2.In **** the “*****” should be “****” (Page , Right column, line)
Answers for “author queries”:
1。。。。。。
2。。。。。。
3。。。。。。
We greatly appreciate the efficient, professional and rapid processing of our paper by your team. If there is anything else we should do, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Thank you and best regards.
Yours sincerely,
××××××
Corresponding author:
Name: ×××
E-mail: ××××@××××