Competition for publication space and for editors’ attention is now very high, and it is no longer sufficient to send a manuscript to a journal editor along with a letter saying little more than “please find my manuscript attached”. The cover letter is your opportunity to directly address the editor of your target journal. It can be used to set your study apart from others and directly explain to the editor why your findings are important and why they should be published in their journal.

There are a number of important components of a cover letter, all of which should be included. These components are described in detail in the attached Edanz Cover Letter Template, which can be used to develop your own cover letters by following the suggestions in the comments and replacing the bracketed sentences with the types of sentences explained. The format of this letter is applicable for most if not all submissions, although additional sections may be required for some types of paper; for example, information about deposition of clinical trial data would most likely need to accompany a report of a clinical trial, and information about the deposition of sequence data into public databases would possibly need to be provided where such data has been obtained.

As always, the target journal’s instructions to authors should be consulted; these will most likely outline the information that absolutely must be included in the cover letter. Another source of this information is the journal’s submission webpages. Although not all of the components listed below and described in the cover letter template will be described as required on the target journal’s webpages, all should be included in your letter, because to do so will increase your chances of grabbing the editor’s attention. The following principals apply to cover letter development:

Exercise

Use the attached Edanz Cover Letter Template to draft a cover letter based on your current research. As well as giving you a ‘ready-made’ cover letter for when you are ready to submit your next paper, this will help you focus on important aspects of your study, including its rationale and significance, and aid you in selecting the most appropriate journal by contemplating the significance of your findings to the readers of a variety of candidate journals. I will do my best to give feedback on each cover letter.

练习

请使用本帖随附的Cover Letter Template练习写作自己的投稿函。这个“现成”的投稿函不仅可以用于各位即将投出的稿件，也会帮助你关注研究的重要部分，包括基本原理和重要性，通过仔细斟酌研究的重要性进而在众多期刊中选择最合适的目标期刊。Dr. Daniel McGowan会尽量回复每位提供的投稿函。

在这里还需提请各位注意，Dr. McGowan 的母语是英语，无法阅读中文，因此请大家尽量使用英文回帖，如有任何需要与他沟通的学术和语言问题也请使用英语，Dr. McGowan 会及时回复大家的。

Dr. Daniel McGowan 曾任 Nature Reviews Neuroscience 副编辑，负责约稿，管理和撰写期刊内容。于2006年加入理文编辑（Edanz Group） 并从2008年起担任学术总监。Dr. Daniel McGowan 有超过十年的博士后和研究生阶段实验室研究经验，主要致力于神经退化疾病、分子及细胞生物学、蛋白质生物化学、蛋白质组学和基因组学。Edanz Cover Letter Template