This guide walks through a complete, paragraph-by-paragraph annotated example of a journal submission cover letter, followed by a clean copy-ready template. If you need the underlying definition, required elements, and publisher-by-publisher variation first, see CASRAI’s Cover Letter for Journal Submission entry — this page assumes that background and focuses on what a finished letter actually looks like, line by line. For the administrative steps around it (assembling files, working through the online submission portal), see Manuscript Submission Process: A Step-by-Step Guide.
About the example below
The letter below is an illustrative composite, not a real submission from a real author or journal. It represents a generic original-research manuscript in a health-sciences-style journal, built to show where each required element goes and why. No institution, editor, journal, or study named in it is real; any resemblance to an actual submission is coincidental. Use it as a structural model, then adapt the content and check your target journal’s own “Guide for Authors” or “Instructions for Authors” page before submitting — as covered in the dictionary entry above, cover-letter conventions genuinely differ by publisher (Elsevier and Springer Nature give directly opposite guidance on whether suggested reviewers belong in the letter at all), so a template copied unchanged across journals can be actively wrong for one of them.
The annotated letter
[Journal masthead / editor’s name and address block]
Dr. A. Chen
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Applied Clinical Outcomes
[date]
Annotation: Address the handling editor by name where the journal’s system provides one, not “Dear Editor” generically. A wrong or missing name is a small but real signal of a template letter reused across journals — see the “sending a cover letter that does not name the correct editor or journal” mistake in the dictionary entry.
Re: Submission of “Six-Month Functional Outcomes Following [Intervention] in [Patient Population]: A Prospective Cohort Study” (Original Research)
Annotation: State the manuscript’s exact working title and its article type (original research, brief report, case study) up front. This lets the editorial office match the letter to the correct file in the submission system without opening the manuscript first.
Dear Dr. Chen,
We are pleased to submit the enclosed manuscript, “Six-Month Functional Outcomes Following [Intervention] in [Patient Population]: A Prospective Cohort Study,” for consideration as an Original Research article in the Journal of Applied Clinical Outcomes. In this prospective cohort of 214 patients, we found that [intervention] was associated with a clinically meaningful improvement in functional outcome at six months compared with standard care, with the effect concentrated in patients presenting within 48 hours of [event]. This is, to our knowledge, the largest prospective cohort to report this comparison outside a single-center trial setting.
Annotation: This is the significance paragraph — the paragraph that does the actual editorial work described in the dictionary entry’s “basic structure” section. It states the manuscript’s central finding in the author’s own words, not the abstract’s, and names what is specifically new about it (largest prospective cohort outside a single-center trial). It does not restate the full background, methods, and results the way an abstract does — that is the most common cover-letter mistake, and an editor reads the abstract separately anyway.
We believe this manuscript is a strong fit for the Journal of Applied Clinical Outcomes specifically because it extends your journal’s 2024 special issue on post-acute functional recovery, and because the readership’s ongoing interest in real-world, registry-adjacent cohort evidence (rather than single-center trial data) makes this cohort’s size and setting directly relevant to your readers’ practice.
Annotation: This is the fit paragraph, and it is intentionally specific rather than a generic compliment. “We believe this work is a strong fit for your prestigious journal” with no named reason is boilerplate an editor has read hundreds of times and does not advance the case. Naming an actual reason — a special issue the study extends, a documented gap in the journal’s recent coverage, a readership the findings are directly relevant to — is what makes a fit claim checkable and credible.
This manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration, in whole or in part, at any other journal. All authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission to the Journal of Applied Clinical Outcomes. Two co-authors (J.R., M.O.) received unrelated consulting fees from a manufacturer in the same therapeutic area during the study period; this relationship had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, or the decision to submit. No other conflicts of interest exist.
Annotation: Three required procedural confirmations in one paragraph: the non-duplicate-submission statement, all-author approval, and conflict-of-interest disclosure. The non-duplicate statement maps directly to the ICMJE Recommendations on overlapping publications, which treat undisclosed simultaneous submission as grounds for prompt rejection or, if discovered after publication, retraction — omitting or vaguely wording this line is one of the few things editorial offices specifically check for at intake. The conflict-of-interest sentence discloses a real, specific, unrelated relationship rather than a vague “no conflicts” — where a conflict genuinely exists, name it plainly; where none exists, say so explicitly rather than leaving the topic unaddressed, since the statement is expected either way. See CASRAI’s conflict of interest disclosure in scholarly publication guide for what counts as a financial or non-financial COI.
Should reviewers be needed, we suggest Dr. L. Ferreira (University of [X], [email protected], expertise in post-acute functional assessment) and Dr. K. Osei (Institute of [Y], [email protected], expertise in the same intervention class) as potential reviewers with relevant subject-matter expertise and no conflicts with this work. We have no reviewers to exclude.
Annotation: Suggested reviewers, included here only because this hypothetical journal’s instructions request them in the cover letter — many journals collect this through a separate submission-system field instead, and some (Elsevier, per its own author guidance) explicitly say it does not belong in the letter at all. Always check the target journal’s current instructions rather than assuming this section belongs in every letter you write. Note the pattern if you do include it: an institutional email address and a one-line reason the person has relevant expertise for each name, not just a list of names. Per most journals’ guidance (and per ICMJE norms more broadly), final reviewer selection remains the editor’s decision regardless of what is suggested.
Thank you for your consideration. I am the corresponding author and can be reached at the address below for any questions during the review process.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author name]
[Institutional affiliation]
[Email address and phone number]
Annotation: A short close naming the corresponding author and contact details. Most journals expect the whole letter, including this closing, to run under one page.
Clean template, without annotations
The same letter with the annotation callouts removed, so it can be copied and adapted directly. Replace every bracketed placeholder, and delete the suggested-reviewers paragraph entirely if your target journal collects that information elsewhere or asks that it be omitted from the letter.
Dr. [Editor name]
Editor-in-Chief, [Journal name]
[Date]Re: Submission of “[Manuscript title]” ([Article type])
Dear Dr. [Editor last name],
We are pleased to submit the enclosed manuscript, “[Manuscript title],” for consideration as [an Original Research article / a Brief Report / etc.] in [Journal name]. [One to two sentences stating the study’s central finding in your own words — not the abstract.] [One sentence on what is specifically new about it.]
We believe this manuscript is a strong fit for [Journal name] because [a specific, checkable reason: a prior paper it extends, a gap in recent coverage, a readership directly relevant to the findings].
This manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration, in whole or in part, at any other journal. All authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission. [State any conflicts of interest specifically, or state that none exist.]
[If the journal’s instructions request it here:] We suggest [Name], [Institution], [email], [one-line reason for relevant expertise], and [Name], [Institution], [email], [reason], as potential reviewers. [Note any reviewers to exclude and why, if applicable.]
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author name]
[Affiliation]
[Email / phone]
Before you send it: a short checklist
- Editor and journal name are correct and match the journal you are actually submitting to — not left over from a prior submission elsewhere.
- The significance paragraph states the finding in your own words, not lifted from the abstract.
- The fit paragraph names a specific, checkable reason, not generic praise.
- The non-duplicate-submission and all-author-approval statements are present and unambiguous.
- Conflicts of interest are disclosed specifically, or their absence is stated explicitly — silence is not treated as “none.”
- Suggested/excluded reviewers are included only if the journal’s own instructions ask for them in the letter itself.
- The letter runs to about one page.
For the full breakdown of required versus optional elements, how conventions differ across major publishers, and common mistakes beyond the ones annotated above, see the Cover Letter for Journal Submission dictionary entry. For what happens to the manuscript after the cover letter and files are submitted — desk screening, reviewer assignment, and decision timelines — see CASRAI’s Peer Review guide.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a different cover letter for every journal I submit to?
Yes. A cover letter should name the specific journal and editor, and its fit paragraph is only credible if it gives a reason tied to that particular journal. Reusing a letter from a prior submission without updating the journal name, editor, and fit reasoning is a recognizable and avoidable mistake at the editorial desk-screening stage.
How long should a journal cover letter be?
Most journals expect it to run to about one page. The structure above — address block, significance paragraph, fit paragraph, procedural confirmations, optional reviewer suggestions, closing — comfortably fits that length without padding.
What happens if I leave out the conflict-of-interest statement?
Most journals expect a conflict-of-interest statement in the cover letter in addition to (not instead of) a formal disclosure form submitted separately. Omitting it, or wording it ambiguously, is one of the specific things editorial offices check for at intake and can generate follow-up correspondence before peer review even starts.
Should I suggest reviewers even if the journal doesn’t ask for it in the letter?
No — follow the specific journal’s instructions. Some publishers collect suggested reviewers through a dedicated field in the online submission system and explicitly state that this information does not belong in the cover letter itself; including it there anyway does not help and can read as not having followed the journal’s own guidance.
Is the cover letter sent to peer reviewers?
No. It is correspondence between the corresponding author and the editorial office, used at the desk-screening stage to help an editor decide whether to send the manuscript out for review. Peer reviewers evaluate the manuscript itself, not the cover letter.
