Page 114 - How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 8th Edition 8th Edition

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PEANUTS reprinted by permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
by the U.S. Postal Service is third-class mail, and your manuscript will be treated as third-class mail and delivered
next month if you neglect to indicate "First Class Mail" clearly on the package or if you apply insufficient postage.

Most scientific journals do not require that authors supply stamped, self-addressed return envelopes, although most
journals in other scholarly fields do enforce such a requirement. Apparently, the comparative brevity of scientific
manuscripts makes it cost-effective for publishers to pay return postage rather than store many bulky envelopes.

Overseas mail should be sent airmail. A manuscript sent from Europe to the U.S., or vice versa, will arrive within 3 to
7 days if sent by airmail; by surface mail, the elapsed time will be 4 to 6 weeks.

Page 115

The Cover Letter

Finally, it is worth noting that you should always send a cover letter with the manuscript. Manuscripts without cover
letters pose immediate problems: To which journal is the manuscript being submitted? Is it a new manuscript, a
revision requested by an editor (and, if so, which editor?), or a manuscript perhaps misdirected by a reviewer or an
editor? If there are several authors, which one should be considered the submitting author, at which address? The
address is of special importance, because the address shown on the manuscript may not be the current address of the
contributing author. The contributing author should also include his or her telephone number, e-mail address, and fax
number in the cover letter or on the title page of the manuscript. It is often helpful to suggest the appropriate editor (in
multieditor journals) and possible reviewers.

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