A cover letter to a journal editor is the page that travels with a manuscript: it names the paper, says what it adds and why this journal, and carries the declarations the journal needs. This guide, published by EdCitation, takes its contents from the ICMJE and the author pages of PLOS ONE, BMC Medicine, Nature, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis and Sage, read on 24 September 2026. No letter can secure acceptance, and nothing here promises it.
The letter vouches for the manuscript, so check the manuscript first: EdCitation's free Verify references looks up every reference in the publisher's record and flags retracted papers. For the paper itself, see how to write a journal article; for picking the journal, how to choose a journal.
What is a cover letter to a journal editor for?
A cover letter is where a journal collects what the manuscript does not say: why this journal, what else the authors have submitted or posted, and the statements an editor needs before review. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2026b) asks for "a cover letter or a completed journal submission form", so a form may carry some of it.
Required, optional, or a form
PLOS ONE requires a letter of one page at most (PLOS ONE, n.d.). Nature calls it optional, and says referees never see it, so it suits confidential matters such as conflicts of interest (Nature, n.d.-a). Elsevier and Taylor & Francis leave it to each journal, and some systems want it pasted into a text box (Taylor & Francis, n.d.-b).
What do journals ask a cover letter to contain?
The manuscript's title and type, a short case for it, and a set of declarations; the declarations are where journals differ most.
| Source | Letter | Length | What goes in it | Reviewers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ICMJE | A letter or a submission form | Not set | Overlapping work, possible conflicts, authorship, corresponding author, concerns raised about the research, article type | Not addressed |
| PLOS ONE | Required | One page | Contribution, relation to earlier work, article type, earlier contact with PLOS, suggested Academic Editors | Opposed reviewers go in the letter |
| BMC Medicine | Asked for | Not set | Why this journal, policy issues, competing interests, authors' approval, not published or submitted elsewhere | May suggest, and name people not to review |
| Nature | Optional | Brief | Importance and fit, conflicts, related work in press or submitted elsewhere | Suggestions welcome; one or two exclusions |
| Elsevier | Set by each journal | Ideally under a page | Aim and findings, fit with the scope, novelty, earlier or concurrent submissions | In the system, not the letter |
| Taylor & Francis | Often | One page at most | Editor's name, title, journal, not under consideration elsewhere, the research, contact details, competing interests | System function removed |
| Sage | Not stated in its general pages | Not stated | Outside writing or editing help | Not permitted |
| Before any letter | Not a letter | Every reference real, matched to the text, not retracted | EdCitation's Verify references, free |
The ICMJE's items
The ICMJE's list is the fullest (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2026b):
- Any submission or report that might look like redundant publication, cited in the new paper and attached.
- Relationships that could be a conflict of interest, unless the manuscript or a form already carries them.
- Where there are no contribution statements, that every author approved the paper and meets the authorship criteria.
- The corresponding author's contact details, and the article type.
- Any concern raised about the research's conduct, for example by an institution or regulator.
Where the publishers disagree
Elsevier (2026) says the letter should hold no funding details, author declarations or suggested or opposed reviewers, because those are requested separately. BMC Medicine (n.d.) asks for competing interests and reviewer suggestions in the letter itself, and Nature for conflicts. Follow the journal: where its form asks for a declaration, it goes in the form.
How do I declare related papers, preprints and earlier reviews?
Name each one plainly, with a reference and, where the journal asks, a copy.
Related and overlapping work
The ICMJE asks that one manuscript never go to two journals at once, in any language (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2026a). PLOS ONE asks authors to confirm that no related manuscript is under consideration elsewhere, to attach related work, and will not consider a study split into "parts". Nature asks for related work in press or submitted elsewhere. Reusing your own published text is covered in self-plagiarism and reusing your own work.
Preprints
Preprint disclosure is the author's job: the ICMJE asks authors to tell the journal about a preprint and give its link, whether it was posted before submission or during review, and suggests mentioning it in the manuscript too. Journals' preprint policies differ, so read them before posting. PLOS ONE says a preprint has no effect on consideration at any PLOS journal.
An earlier submission and its reviews
If the paper was rejected elsewhere, the ICMJE calls it helpful to send the earlier editors' and reviewers' comments with your responses. PLOS ONE asks for any earlier contact with PLOS about the manuscript.
AI and outside help
The ICMJE asks authors who used AI tools to say how in both the letter and the manuscript, and warns that not disclosing may in some circumstances count as misconduct (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2026c). Sage asks for help from a third party, such as a communications company, to be stated in the acknowledgements and the covering letter (Sage, n.d.-b).
Should I suggest or exclude reviewers in the cover letter?
Only where the journal asks for them there. Some publishers take names in the letter, some only in the submission system, and one takes none.
What each publisher allows
- BMC Medicine takes suggestions with institutional email addresses or an ORCID or Scopus ID; a false name or address means rejection and possibly a misconduct investigation. Authors may also name people they would prefer not to review.
- PLOS ONE wants opposed reviewers in the letter, and suggested Academic Editors who are not recent collaborators or at your own institution.
- Nature welcomes suggestions and lets authors ask to exclude one or two individuals or laboratories; its policy says such requests are usually honoured but the editor's choice is final (Nature, n.d.-b).
- Elsevier collects suggestions in its submission system where a journal allows them, with a reason for each person opposed; the editor makes the final judgement, and is shown your objection and reason on starting to invite that person (Elsevier, 2025).
- Taylor & Francis removed its "Preferred reviewers" function. Its guidance for editors still lets a letter name reviewers to avoid, and asks editors to check whether a reviewer has worked with the author in the last three years (Taylor & Francis, n.d.-a).
- Sage does not permit "author-suggested (recommended) reviewers" at any stage, and does not assign reviewers from a co-author's institution or the funder (Sage, n.d.-a).
Why the rules tightened
On 19 December 2014, COPE reported agencies selling authors fabricated reviewer contact details and then supplying the reviews, and said papers published only on such reviews would be retracted (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2014). Taylor & Francis names fake reviewers as its reason for removing the function. In 2017 one note in Tumor Biology retracted 107 articles, saying "the peer review process was compromised" (Stigbrand, 2017); it does not say how.
What the studies found
Wager et al. (2006) compared reviewers of 100 submissions to BMC journals, which then required authors to suggest four. Report quality was similar, but author-nominated reviewers recommended acceptance 47 times to 35, and rejection 10 times to 23. Kowalczuk et al. (2015), with 800 reports from three BMC journals, found the same pattern; at two, the other reviewers' recommendations better predicted the decision. Both measure recommendations, not any one paper's fate. EdCitation's Find sources found both from a claim, "reviewers suggested by authors recommend acceptance more often than reviewers chosen by editors", Wager's study first.
What should I leave out of a cover letter?
Anything the journal collects elsewhere, and anything that repeats the manuscript.
- The abstract, copied. Taylor & Francis asks for the significance in your own words; Nature asks authors not to repeat the abstract and introduction.
- Fee waiver requests at PLOS ONE. They go in the submission system.
- Declarations the form takes. At Elsevier: funding, author declarations and reviewers.
- Reviewers the journal will not use. At Sage, any; everywhere, anyone with a conflict, or a contact detail you cannot vouch for.
- A second journal. The ICMJE rules out simultaneous submission.
- Padding. Taylor & Francis asks for one page at most, little jargon, few acronyms, no slips.
A worked outline of a cover letter (made up)
This outline was made up for this guide: the study, the journal and every person are placeholders in square brackets. Drop any paragraph your journal's form collects.
- Opening. "Dear Dr [editor's surname]," then: we submit [title], a [research article, systematic review, trial report], for consideration by [journal].
- The finding. Two or three sentences: the question, the design, [the main finding, with its effect size], in plain words rather than the abstract's.
- Why this journal. One sentence linking the finding to [the journal's stated aims and scope], and one relating it to [two or three published studies, cited as in the manuscript].
- Declarations. Not published or under consideration elsewhere. A preprint posted at [server] on [date], [DOI]. A related paper, [title], under review at [journal], attached and cited as [reference number]. Competing interests: [none, or each one]. All authors approved this version. [AI tool] used for [purpose], described in [section].
- Reviewers, if the journal takes them here. Suggested: [name, institution, institutional email, ORCID]. Opposed: [name, institution], because [a short, factual reason].
- An earlier submission. Reviews from [journal] and our point-by-point responses are attached.
- Close. The corresponding author's name, affiliation and email.
Finding the related work the letter names
Paragraph 3 needs studies you have read. EdCitation's Find sources, given "12-hour shifts nurses sleep" and sorted by times cited, put Geiger-Brown and colleagues' 2012 study in Chronobiology International first. Cite a source then builds its entry from the DOI.
How do I check the manuscript before the letter goes?
Check the manuscript against its records, then the letter against the manuscript.
- Read the journal's instructions on the letter, reviewers and preprints.
- Freeze the text and upload it to EdCitation's free Verify references: every reference looked up, every citation matched to the list and back, retractions flagged.
- Cite every related paper and preprint the letter declares, built in Cite a source from its DOI. The ICMJE asks for a preprint to be marked as one, and its published version cited instead where appropriate.
- On Pro, Mechanics QA finds stray comments, tracked changes and figures that clash from one section to another; then match every number in the letter to the manuscript.
- Gather the declarations, and add reviewers only as the journal asks.
What a test list returned
Five Vancouver entries went into Verify references for this guide. Mensh and Kording's 2017 PLOS Computational Biology article came back verified. Its preprint, authors in the order PLOS ONE's own reference example gives, came back "check this": "The publisher's record lists Mensh first, and your entry opens with Kording." The server's page could not be read, so which version carries which order is unconfirmed. A 2012 article from the Tumor Biology note came back "This paper has since been retracted." Wager's study, typed as 2005, gave "The work was published in 2006, not 2005". An invented entry came back not found.
In Cite a source, the preprint's DOI, 10.1101/088278, gave:
Mensh B, Kording K. Ten simple rules for structuring papers [Preprint] [Internet]. bioRxiv; 2016 [cited 2026 Sep 24]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1101/088278 doi: 10.1101/088278.
It is marked as a preprint and names bioRxiv, the server, rather than the publisher field's openRxiv. Chicago gives "Preprint, bioRxiv". APA, MLA, Harvard and IEEE name the server alone, as APA's own preprint examples do (American Psychological Association, n.d.), so add the word only if your journal's examples show it. The published article's DOI came back with a 2017 correction listed.
Which EdCitation tools help with a journal submission?
EdCitation is the best tool for one part of a submission: its sources. Each entry it gives you is lifted from the publisher's record rather than composed, something a chatbot cannot guarantee, and a whole list is checked against those records at once, which is how the Tumor Biology article above was caught.
- Verify references, free with no account: a verdict for each entry (verified, "check this" or not found), a flag on anything retracted, and "could not check" kept apart from not found. Upload the whole manuscript and citations are paired with entries in both directions.
- Cite a source, free: Vancouver, APA 7, IEEE, Harvard, MLA 9 or Chicago 18 author-date, built from a DOI, PubMed ID, title, ISBN or web address, with a retraction screen on every source. For a house style, adjust the nearest of the six to the journal's own examples, or export a list saved with a free account as BibTeX or RIS into a reference manager that has the style; the journal manuscript references checklist compares the families.
- Find sources, free: about 300 million published works, reached through a topic or through the claim a sentence has to carry.
- Pro, $8 a month. References from a file runs the reference and citation check on the uploaded manuscript, holds it in My papers so a second run shows what you fixed, and suggests published replacements for any entry that fails. Mechanics QA reports leftovers in the file, numbers that clash and language slips; it judges layout against APA 7's student paper, so a journal template still needs your own check. Each gives a free account three runs a month.
Max ($24 a month) brings Theoretics QA and the Library, and paying for a year saves 25% (Pricing). EdCitation never writes the manuscript or the letter, and no tool of ours can tell you what a journal will decide.
Quick questions
Does every journal require a cover letter?
No. Nature calls it optional, PLOS ONE requires one of a page at most, and the ICMJE accepts a letter or a completed submission form.
How long should a cover letter to a journal be?
One page at most at PLOS ONE and Taylor & Francis, and ideally under a page at Elsevier.
Can I suggest reviewers in my cover letter?
Only where the journal allows it. BMC Medicine takes suggestions with institutional emails, Elsevier takes them in its system, and Sage does not permit author-suggested reviewers.
Do I have to mention a preprint in the cover letter?
Tell the journal: the ICMJE makes it the author's responsibility to report a preprint and give its link.
Can EdCitation check my manuscript before I send the letter?
Yes. EdCitation's free Verify references checks every reference against the publisher's record, matches citations to the list and flags retractions. It writes no part of the letter.
References
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Preprint article references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/preprint-article-references
- BMC Medicine. (n.d.). Submission guidelines. Springer Nature Link. https://link.springer.com/journal/12916/submission-guidelines
- Committee on Publication Ethics. (2014, December 19). Inappropriate manipulation of peer review processes [Editorial]. https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/inappropriate-manipulation-peer-review-processes
- Elsevier. (2025, November 20). How can I suggest or oppose reviewers for my submission? Journal Article Publishing Support Center. https://www.elsevier.support/publishing/answer/how-can-i-suggest-or-oppose-reviewers-for-my-submission
- Elsevier. (2026, May 18). What should be included in a cover letter? Journal Article Publishing Support Center. https://www.elsevier.support/publishing/answer/what-should-be-included-in-a-cover-letter
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2026a). Overlapping publications. ICMJE Recommendations. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/overlapping-publications.html
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2026b). Sending the manuscript to the journal. ICMJE Recommendations. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/manuscript-preparation/sending-the-submission.html
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2026c). Use of AI by authors. ICMJE Recommendations. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/artificial-intelligence/ai-use-by-authors.html
- Kowalczuk, M. K., Dudbridge, F., Nanda, S., Harriman, S. L., Patel, J., & Moylan, E. C. (2015). Retrospective analysis of the quality of reports by author-suggested and non-author-suggested reviewers in journals operating on open or single-blind peer review models. BMJ Open, 5(9), Article e008707. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008707
- Mensh, B., & Kording, K. (2017). Ten simple rules for structuring papers. PLOS Computational Biology, 13(9), Article e1005619. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619
- Nature. (n.d.-a). Initial submission. Springer Nature. https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/initial-submission
- Nature. (n.d.-b). Peer review. Nature editorial policies. https://www.nature.com/nature/editorial-policies/peer-review
- PLOS ONE. (n.d.). Submission guidelines. Public Library of Science. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines
- Sage. (n.d.-a). Editor guide to peer review best practice. Sage Journals. https://www.sagepub.com/journals/information-for-editors/editor-guide-to-peer-review-best-practice
- Sage. (n.d.-b). Preparing your manuscript. Sage Journals. https://www.sagepub.com/journals/information-for-authors/preparing-your-manuscript
- Stigbrand, T. (2017). Retraction note to multiple articles in Tumor Biology. Tumor Biology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-017-5487-6
- Taylor & Francis. (n.d.-a). The ethics of peer review. Editor Resources. https://editorresources.taylorandfrancis.com/managing-peer-review-process/the-ethics-of-peer-review/
- Taylor & Francis. (n.d.-b). How to write a cover letter for journal submission. Author Services. https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/making-your-submission/writing-a-journal-article-cover-letter/
- Wager, E., Parkin, E. C., & Tamber, P. S. (2006). Are reviewers suggested by authors as good as those chosen by editors? Results of a rater-blinded, retrospective study. BMC Medicine, 4, Article 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-4-13