During the submission of the manuscript to the journal, a cover letter written to the editor is also uploaded to the system or sent via e-mail together with other manuscript files in line with the journal’s manuscript submission format. The cover letter is prepared by the manuscript’s responsible author and includes the names of the authors and the title of the manuscript. In addition, other information requested by the journal on the Instructions for Authors page (that the manuscript has not been published before and is not currently under review in any journal, that all of the authors have significantly contributed to the study and deserve authorship, that all the authors have read the final version of the manuscript and approve its publication, that the authors have no conflict of interest, etc.) are included in the cover letter. Some journals request this information on the forms they have prepared (for example, the manuscript approval form with all the authors’ names and signatures).

Seen as an unnecessary formality by many authors, a cover letter is a convenient tool for authors to advertise their manuscripts. Even the most interested journal editors do not have the time to read all the manuscripts sent to their journals thoroughly and the knowledge to evaluate the scientific content of all manuscripts. Often the practice is for the editor (or associate editors) to review the manuscript’s Abstract, Materials & Methods, Results, and Discussion in particular, after a general overview of the work. A well-written cover letter can give writers a massive advantage at this stage. A brief but powerful cover letter summarizing the striking results obtained from the study and proving how the manuscript can fill the knowledge gap in the area provides excellent help to the editor (or associate editors) who have to go through a lengthy manuscript to make a preliminary decision. Unlike in the standard Abstract of the manuscript, authors can construct sentences praising the prominent aspects of their manuscript in the cover letter. Well-prepared cover letters are precious in the eyes of the editors and make a positive contribution to the preliminary evaluation of the manuscript. The issue of preparing a cover letter should be taken seriously by the authors.

You can find a sample cover letter and sentence patterns you can use when writing a cover letter in Part 5: Communication with the Journal.