est-cover-letter

Cover Letter & Editor Pitch (est-cover-letter)

A significant fraction of ES&T submissions are declined by an editor without external review. The cover letter is your one shot to make the environmental significance and fit unmissable before the manuscript is even opened. ES&T also asks authors to suggest qualified, non-conflicted reviewers.

When to trigger

• Writing the cover letter for a new submission
• Preparing suggested-reviewer and conflict-of-interest information
• Justifying the chosen article type (or why ES&T over ES&T Letters / a specialist journal)
• Re-pitching after a transfer or a desk decline elsewhere

What the cover letter must do

1. Lead with significance and novelty. In 2–3 sentences: the environmental problem, what is new, and why it is direction-setting for the ES&T audience — not a methods recap.
2. Name the article type. Research Article / Critical Review / Feature / Perspective / Policy Analysis, and confirm it fits the caps.
3. Assert fit and scope. Tie the work explicitly to ES&T's scope (fate/transport, treatment, tox/health, biogeochem, sustainability, policy interface).
4. State integrity basics. Original, not under consideration elsewhere; all coauthors consent; note any related preprint; declare conflicts of interest.
5. Suggest reviewers. Provide ≥4 qualified experts with no conflicts (not recent collaborators/co-authors/same institution); optionally note non-preferred reviewers with reason.
6. Be brief. One page; no overclaiming; no reviewer-flattery.

Suggested-reviewer checklist

• At least 4 names, affiliations, and emails
• Genuine subject expertise across the relevant sub-areas
• No conflicts (no recent co-authorship, advising, or shared institution)
• A balanced, international set where possible

What the desk editor is screening for (and how the letter answers it)

ES&T editors triage on a handful of axes before deciding whether to spend a reviewer's time. The letter exists to settle each one in the first read. Treat the table as the editor's mental checklist.

Editor's silent question	Weak letter	Letter that survives the desk
Is this environmentally significant?	"We characterized sorption of compound X"	"X is a high-production-volume replacement detected in drinking-water sources; its mobility governs human exposure"
Is it novel or incremental occurrence?	"We add new monitoring data"	"First mechanistic link between [process] and observed field concentrations, resolving a contradiction in prior ES&T work"
Does it fit ES&T vs. a specialist title?	scope unstated	one sentence tying to fate/transport, treatment, tox, or policy interface
Right article type and within caps?	type unnamed	"Research Article, ~6,400 words incl. figure word-equivalents"
Can I find clean reviewers?	2 close collaborators	≥4 non-conflicted experts spanning the sub-areas

Worked micro-example (illustrative — a PFAS occurrence-and-fate study)

Suppose the manuscript reports per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in a wastewater-impacted river, with a transformation pathway from a precursor to a terminal perfluoroalkyl acid. Illustrative framing only — numbers are invented to show the move:

• Weak hook (desk-decline risk): "We measured 14 PFAS at 8 sites; concentrations ranged 2–90 ng/L." This is occurrence data; an editor reads it as incremental.
• Strong hook: "We show that a precursor (illustrative: 6:2 FTSA) is biotransformed to PFHxA downstream of a discharge, raising terminal-acid load ~40% (illustrative) over 12 km — evidence that occurrence surveys underestimate persistent burden because they miss in-stream precursor conversion." Now the significance (exposure-relevant, direction-setting for monitoring design) is explicit in two sentences, and the novelty is mechanistic rather than another concentration table.

The fix that converts most desk-rejects is replacing what we measured with what the measurement changes about how the field should monitor, model, treat, or regulate the system.

Anti-patterns

• A letter that summarizes methods but never states environmental significance
• Overclaiming ("first ever," "paradigm shift") with no support
• Suggesting close collaborators or same-institution colleagues as reviewers
• Omitting COI, preprint status, or coauthor-consent statements
• A multi-page letter that buries the contribution
• Pitching incremental occurrence data without a mechanistic or exposure consequence

Output format

【Hook】significance + novelty in 2–3 sentences
【Article type】named + caps fit confirmed
【Fit】tied to ES&T scope explicitly
【Integrity】original + coauthor consent + preprint/COI noted
【Suggested reviewers】≥4 non-conflicted (names/affil/email)
【Length】one page? [Y/N]
【Next】est-review-process

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — editor screening, reviewer-suggestion, and COI policy