How To Write a Revise and Resubmit (R&R) Submission Cover Letter and Memo

How To Write a Revise and Resubmit (R&R) Submission Cover Letter

Today’s post is a special request post for several clients who have written to inquire how to write a cover letter for a Revise and Resubmit (R&R) submission of an article manuscript to a journal. See How To Write a Journal Article Submission Cover Letter for more information.

As formal letters go, this one to had a standard formula. 3 short paragraphs that day something substantial about your manuscript. Don't use vague platitudes. If thou don't know how to do that well, and professionally (I.e., don't act like a grad student), see the post Show Them, Don't Tell Them You're Awesome.

LETTERHEAD

Dr. EDITORS NAME

Editor-in-Chief Journal of XXX

Their Address

Their CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE

Dear Editor in Chief,

The first paragraph is to remind the editor of your manuscript and thank them again for the opportunity to R&R. 

"Thank you for the opportunity to revise and resubmit our manuscript, Manuscript ID AJADD-22-XXX, entitled "TITLE". Attached is our much-revised manuscript."

The next paragraph describes 1) summarize key points from the reviewers (highlighted in yellow below), and 2) what you and the co-authors did to address the weaknesses (in blue). Choose one example of what you changed for each Reviewer (in pink for Reviewer 2). 

"In this round of reviews, the reviewers caught discrepancies between the review memo and the manuscript, and further identified some additional changes in the background and discussion sections. For example, we discuss combination of obesity with other protective / risk factors and reviewed the suggested literature citations to make a stronger front end. We have also included additional two citations on MSM models. Reviewer 2 requested more literature and explanation in the Discussion. Reviewer 2 requested more literature and explanation in the Discussion. We have added two substantial sections in the Discussion."

The Third paragraph explains how you responded to each Reviewer comment in the memo. First, you agree with the authors that changes were necessary. Second, thank them for their time, expertise, and help making the manuscript better. Third, tell the editor the formatting of the memo that follows. 

"We agree with the reviewers that this represents a minor but crucial improvement over the prior manuscript. We thank the reviewers for their time, care, and expertise to improve these manuscripts. We have detailed our responses below and have highlighted the changes to our manuscript. Reviewer Comments were pasted verbatim and italicized (labelled “Comment”), while our response follows (labelled “Response”). Finally, we took this opportunity for all authors to take a thorough review of the resulting manuscript to improve flow and ensure that all changes indicated in the review memo exactly matched those in the manuscript."

Sincerely Yours,

(Signature)

Ms/Mr/Dr./Mx. Name

That's it for the cover letter.

~JTTT

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