What's a Cover Letter? How Do I Write One?

Greetings again. I hope that May is starting well for you.

Recently a student sought my advice on writing a cover letter. Sometimes researchers ask me what a cover letter is.

Well, what’s a cover letter? How can you write a good one?

A cover letter (also called a covering letter) is a letter that accompanies something being sent and provides information about it. It may, for example, accompany

• a paper being submitted to a journal,
• a grant proposal being sent to a funding agency, or
• the curriculum vitae of someone applying for a fellowship or a job.

A cover letter should identify what is being sent, say why it is being sent, and provide other information that can help the recipient to proceed appropriately.

Thus, for a journal submission, the cover letter might state the title and author(s) of the paper, say whether the submission is new or revised, and provide other requested information about the paper.

Some journals’ instructions to authors say what information to include in the cover letter. And some journals’ electronic-submission systems let authors enter the information electronically rather than writing an actual letter.

The journal publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins has provided a checklist for writing a cover letter. A sample cover letter appears below the checklist.

Samples of other cover letters (for instance, for applying for jobs) can be found through a Google search using the phrase cover letter sample.

I hope this information is useful. Wishing you a good May! –Barbara