Cover Letter Generator

Draft a submission-ready academic cover letter for a target journal. This skill is for editor-facing academic writing, not for inventing missing paper content.

When to Use

• The user is preparing an initial manuscript submission.
• The user has a paper title, contribution summary, and target-journal context.
• The user wants a professional cover letter with journal fit, novelty, declarations, and closing details.
• The user needs a deterministic structure rather than ad-hoc prose.

When Not to Use

• The user has not chosen a target journal and only wants a generic marketing blurb.
• The user is asking for peer-review responses, rebuttal letters, or grant cover pages.
• The user wants you to invent results, journal scope, reviewer identities, or declarations that were not supplied.

Required Inputs

Minimum required:

• manuscript title
• target journal
• 2-4 core contributions or innovation points
• corresponding author name, affiliation, and email

Strongly recommended:

• one-sentence journal fit rationale
• brief methods summary
• brief key-results summary
• originality / exclusive-submission statement
• optional reviewer suggestions
• optional conflict-of-interest or ethics statement

Missing-Input Recovery

If any required field is missing, do not output a fake journal-ready letter. Use this structure first:

Cannot finalize the cover letter yet.
Missing required items:
- <item 1>
- <item 2>

Usable fallback:
- I can draft a partial letter shell after these items are supplied.

Only draft a partial shell if the user explicitly wants one after seeing the missing items.

Output Contract

Return a complete letter using the structure below:

1. Salutation to the editor
2. Submission request with manuscript title and journal name
3. Journal-fit paragraph
4. Novelty / contribution paragraph
5. Methods + key-results paragraph
6. Relevance / readership / reproducibility paragraph
7. Required declarations paragraph
8. Optional reviewer / COI paragraph
9. Professional closing with corresponding-author identity

Formatting rules:

• professional, restrained tone
• 4-6 short paragraphs
• no hype language such as groundbreaking, revolutionary, or game-changing
• no claims not grounded in supplied manuscript information
• no bullet lists in the final letter unless the user explicitly requests them

Drafting Workflow

1. Validate inputs

Confirm that all required items are present.

If not:

• invoke ## Missing-Input Recovery
• stop before drafting a "journal-ready" letter

2. Build the journal-fit angle

Write 1-2 sentences that connect:

• manuscript topic
• target journal scope
• expected readership

Avoid generic fit claims like This paper will interest your readers unless followed by a concrete reason.

3. Write the contribution core

Summarize:

• what is new
• why it matters
• what prior gap or limitation it addresses

Keep this focused on contributions, not full manuscript retelling.

4. Add methods and results evidence

Use only concise, high-signal evidence:

• study approach
• model, dataset, or experimental system
• strongest result or takeaway

Do not turn this section into a mini-abstract.

5. Add declarations

Always include or explicitly request:

• originality / not under review elsewhere
• author approval

Add journal-specific statements if the user supplies them:

• ethics approval
• informed consent
• data availability
• code availability
• conflict of interest
• suggested reviewers

Journal-Specific Declaration Matrix

Use the following logic:

• Basic engineering / methods journal: include originality, author approval, code/data availability if relevant
• Biomedical / clinical journal: include originality, author approval, ethics / consent if relevant, COI, data availability
• Computational journal: include originality, author approval, reproducibility / code availability if relevant

If the user does not provide a declaration that may be required, ask for it rather than inventing it.

Templates and Assets

• Use assets/cover_letter_template.md as the paragraph skeleton.
• Use references/guide.md as the preflight checklist.

Deterministic Rules

• Keep paragraph order stable.
• Mention the journal name in the opening paragraph exactly once unless there is a clear need to repeat it.
• Keep reviewer suggestions and COI in the closing section, not the middle of the letter.
• If a quantitative result is not supplied, describe the contribution qualitatively instead of guessing numbers.

Quality Checklist

Before returning the letter, verify:

• the journal fit is concrete
• the novelty statement is specific
• the methods / results paragraph is concise
• declarations are present or explicitly requested
• the final tone sounds like editor-facing academic correspondence