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Cover Letter, Authors’ Response, and Supplementary Material

1. What are the differences among Cover Letter, Authors’ Response and Supplementary Material?

A Cover Letter can only be seen by the editors-in-chief (EIC) and the associate editor (AE) assigned to the paper concerned. External reviewers cannot read the cover letter. An Authors’ Response is only available for the submission of a revised paper after a minor or major revision decision. A piece of Supplementary Material (an additional file) is always available for the submission at any stage and is always available to be viewed by the reviewers.

For submitting any materials that authors wish the reviewers to see, the general advice is to use Supplementary Material. For example, for revision reports and rebuttals, one may use an <additional file for review but not for publication>. It is usually better to submit a revision report as a PDF file though a MS-Word document is also acceptable as a piece of Supplementary Material. The software system for submission and review automatically merges all PDF files in the Supplementary Material folder with the manuscript of the submitted paper to provide the reviewers with a bit extra help.

CGF suggested to ScholarOne to label Cover Letter as a confidential item, but ScholarOne could not accommodate this request. Many authors often used a cover letter to submit a revision report. If this occurs for a major revision, CGF has to ask authors to make appropriate changes to let the reviewers read the revision report. As most minor revisions are only reviewed by the AE assigned, CGF normally accepts the revision report in the form of a cover letter.

2. Do I need to submit all files under the Files section?

Under the Files section, there are different types of files that one may upload. These include:

  • Main Document. This is always required and it should always be submitted as a PDF file.
  • Figure. During the review stage, authors are NOT required to submit all figures included in the paper. These are only required after the paper has been accepted. Some authors submit high-resolution images or additional images for review or online publications. CGF encourages authors to use a slide show (e.g., PDF or PPT) to display such images with additional text or voice annotation.
  • Editable Source Files for Publication. During the review stage, authors are NOT required to submit such files. These are only required after the paper has been accepted. 
  • Additional Files for Review but NOT for Publication. These may include revision reports and rebuttal letters.
  • Additional Files NOT for Review but NOT for Publication. It is not common for authors to submit files under this category. Files of this nature may occasionally useful to some authors.
  • Supporting Information for Review and Online Publication Only. These may include appendices, slide show, demonstration videos, data files for public access, software for public access, and so on.