a research letter

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Types of journal articles

It is helpful to familiarise yourself with the different types of articles published by journals. Although it may appear there are a large number of types of articles published due to the wide variety of names they are published under, most articles published are one of the following types; Original Research, Review Articles, Short reports or Letters, Case Studies, Methodologies.

Original Research:

This is the most common type of journal manuscript used to publish full reports of data from research. It may be called an  Original Article, Research Article, Research, or just  Article, depending on the journal. The Original Research format is suitable for many different fields and different types of studies. It includes full Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections.

Short reports or Letters:

These papers communicate brief reports of data from original research that editors believe will be interesting to many researchers, and that will likely stimulate further research in the field. As they are relatively short the format is useful for scientists with results that are time sensitive (for example, those in highly competitive or quickly-changing disciplines). This format often has strict length limits, so some experimental details may not be published until the authors write a full Original Research manuscript. These papers are also sometimes called Brief communications .

Review Articles:

Review Articles provide a comprehensive summary of research on a certain topic, and a perspective on the state of the field and where it is heading. They are often written by leaders in a particular discipline after invitation from the editors of a journal. Reviews are often widely read (for example, by researchers looking for a full introduction to a field) and highly cited. Reviews commonly cite approximately 100 primary research articles.

TIP: If you would like to write a Review but have not been invited by a journal, be sure to check the journal website as some journals to not consider unsolicited Reviews. If the website does not mention whether Reviews are commissioned it is wise to send a pre-submission enquiry letter to the journal editor to propose your Review manuscript before you spend time writing it.  

Case Studies:

These articles report specific instances of interesting phenomena. A goal of Case Studies is to make other researchers aware of the possibility that a specific phenomenon might occur. This type of study is often used in medicine to report the occurrence of previously unknown or emerging pathologies.

Methodologies or Methods

These articles present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article should describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.

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Graduate School Applications: Writing a Research Statement

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What is a Research Statement?

A research statement is a short document that provides a brief history of your past research experience, the current state of your research, and the future work you intend to complete.

The research statement is a common component of a potential candidate’s application for post-undergraduate study. This may include applications for graduate programs, post-doctoral fellowships, or faculty positions. The research statement is often the primary way that a committee determines if a candidate’s interests and past experience make them a good fit for their program/institution.

What Should It Look Like?

Research statements are generally one to two single-spaced pages. You should be sure to thoroughly read and follow the length and content requirements for each individual application.

Your research statement should situate your work within the larger context of your field and show how your works contributes to, complicates, or counters other work being done. It should be written for an audience of other professionals in your field.

What Should It Include?

Your statement should start by articulating the broader field that you are working within and the larger question or questions that you are interested in answering. It should then move to articulate your specific interest.

The body of your statement should include a brief history of your past research . What questions did you initially set out to answer in your research project? What did you find? How did it contribute to your field? (i.e. did it lead to academic publications, conferences, or collaborations?). How did your past research propel you forward?

It should also address your present research . What questions are you actively trying to solve? What have you found so far? How are you connecting your research to the larger academic conversation? (i.e. do you have any publications under review, upcoming conferences, or other professional engagements?) What are the larger implications of your work?

Finally, it should describe the future trajectory on which you intend to take your research. What further questions do you want to solve? How do you intend to find answers to these questions? How can the institution to which you are applying help you in that process? What are the broader implications of your potential results?

Note: Make sure that the research project that you propose can be completed at the institution to which you are applying.

Other Considerations:

• What is the primary question that you have tried to address over the course of your academic career? Why is this question important to the field? How has each stage of your work related to that question?
• Include a few specific examples that show your success. What tangible solutions have you found to the question that you were trying to answer? How have your solutions impacted the larger field? Examples can include references to published findings, conference presentations, or other professional involvement.
• Be confident about your skills and abilities. The research statement is your opportunity to sell yourself to an institution. Show that you are self-motivated and passionate about your project.

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Instructions to Authors

About the Journal

Manuscript Preparation

Post-Acceptance

Editorial Policy

Data Policy

About the Journal 

British Journal of Dermatology  (BJD) is a hybrid access peer-reviewed journal that publishes 12 issues per year. Once a paper is accepted BJD will publish a pre-copyedited, pre-proofed version of the paper online within 48 hours of receiving a signed licence. This is replaced by a copyedited, proofed version of the paper as soon as it is ready. Please read the instructions on this page carefully and follow them closely. The Editors may return manuscripts that do not follow these instructions. 

Scope of the Journal 

BJD is a high-ranked global journal advancing the understanding and management of skin disease including clinical trials, translational research and treatment guidelines to improve patient outcomes.  

Submission 

We will consider your manuscript as long as 

• it is your own original work and does not duplicate any previously published work, including your own; 
• it is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any journal other than BJD; 
• it has not been published in any other journal; and 
• it contains nothing abusive, defamatory, libellous, obscene, fraudulent or illegal. 

Authors should observe high ethical standards and obey publication best practices. The following are all unacceptable: 

• data falsification or fabrication 
• plagiarism, including duplicate publication of your own work without proper citation 
• misappropriation of work 

We treat any case of ethical or publication malpractice very seriously. We will address them in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Further information about OUP’s ethical policies is available. 

Publication Criteria 

• The study has not been published elsewhere except on a preprint server or as an abstract for a conference; if published elsewhere, then this ought to be stated in the manuscript. 
• Experiments, statistics and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail to ensure replication of the study. 
• Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data. 
• The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. 
• The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. 
• The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability. 

How to Submit 

You must submit your paper via our web-based submission system, which may be found at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjd . If you have not published with BJD before, you will need to create an account. More information is available on the ScholarOne Manuscripts FAQ and help page. Questions about submitting can be sent to the editorial office at [email protected] . 

Third-Party Permissions 

If you wish to reproduce any material for which you do not own the copyright—including quotations, tables or images—you must obtain permission from the copyright holder. The permissions agreement must include the following documents and be included at submission: 

• nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your BJD article  
• both print and electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium 
• lifetime rights to use the material 
• worldwide language rights 

Further information on obtaining permissions is available. 

Fast-Track Submission

BJD offers a fast-track process for a select number of high-priority manuscripts, such as phase II or III RCTs, and time-sensitive data. BJD will provide a first decision within 7 working days. Revisions will also be handled swiftly. Approval for fast track is entirely at the discretion of the Editor. There is no charge for the fast-track service; however, the following requirements must be met to permit the fast-track process to proceed:

• A presubmission enquiry at least 3 weeks before submission. The enquiry should include the abstract of the article and the reason for requesting fast track. Please send to the Editor of the BJD at [email protected].
• If approved for the fast-track process all correspondence should be copied to [email protected].
• Authors must specify a submission date at least 3 weeks in advance and adhere to this date, allowing the journal to prepare reviewers in advance.

To ensure a rapid time to online publication, authors must commit to responding comprehensively to reviewers’ comments within 7 working days.

Manuscript Preparation 

Presubmission language editing .

If you are not confident in the quality of your English, you may wish to use a language-editing service to ensure that editors and reviewers understand your paper. Oxford University Press partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Prospective authors are entitled to a discount of 30% for editing services at Enago, via this link: https://www.enago.com/pub/oup .  

Enago is an independent service provider, who will handle all aspects of this service, including payment. As an author you are under no obligation to take up this offer. Language editing is optional and does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will still undergo peer review by the journal. 

General Guidance 

• Manuscript text must be saved in Word (.doc or .docx) or rich text format (.rtf). Tables are considered textual and should be supplied in the same format. Please do not submit text in a PDF format (.pdf). 
• Figures must be saved and uploaded as separate figure files. GIF, JPEG, PICT or BMP files are acceptable for submission, but only JPEG, TIFF or EPS files are suitable for printing. After acceptance, you will be contacted to provide print-quality figures if you have not already done so. Please note that if you supply figures in PDF format only, they must be distilled using the ‘print optimized’ option. 
• Abbreviations must be defined when first used in the abstract and in the main text, as well as when first used in table and figure captions. 
• All relevant files must be included with each revision of the paper. 
• Repetition of information or data in different sections of the manuscript must be carefully avoided. 

Submission Requirements 

• Author Consent. This section of the submission process must be completed to confirm that all authors listed qualify for authorship according to the  ICJME guidelines  and that all authors agree to its submission to BJD. 
• Conflicts of interest. This is essential; please see the Data Policy section for complete details.  
• Funding statement. State sources of funding for the research, including a short description of involvement of the funder in the study design, data collection, data analysis and manuscript preparation. 
• Data availability statement. This is required even if no data are available. Sample data availability statements can be found on OUP's pages .
• Ethics statement. BJD requires that studies involving human or animal subjects be approved by the authors' Institutional Review Board (IRB) or its equivalent. IRB approval (or exemption) must be stated in the manuscript. 
• Patient Consent. Patient consent for publication, including for use in social media, is required for all clinical images whether or not the patient is identifiable. See our Patient Policy for full details. 
• A Plain Language Summary (for Original and Review Articles). 

Title Page 

• The first page of all manuscripts should contain the following information: 
• The title of the paper. 
• A running head not exceeding 70 characters (not needed for correspondence-type items). 
• Manuscript word, table and figure counts. 
• Names of authors as first name(s) followed by surnames. Middle names, if applicable, can be given as initials (e.g. John A. Smith).
• Names of the institutions at which the research was conducted, clearly linked to the respective authors using superscript Arabic numbers. 
• Name and email address of the corresponding author. 
• Any acknowledgements.
• A statement of all funding sources that supported the work. 
• Any conflict of interest disclosures. 
• Data availability statement.
• Ethics statement.
• For translational research papers include a third set: What is the translational message? 
• For qualitative research papers include a third set: What are the clinical implications of this work? 

Abstract 

• Authors submitting Original Articles should note that structured Abstracts are required. The Abstract should adopt the format: Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusions. 
• Review Articles require Abstracts, but they should not be structured. 
• Abstracts should contain no citations to previously published work. 
• Correspondence-type items do not require Abstracts. 
• Abstracts for randomized controlled trials should follow the CONSORT extension for abstracts.  
• Maximum 350 words. 

Graphical Abstract

Authors submitting Original Articles and Review Articles are encouraged to provide a Graphical Abstract.

General guidance

• Graphical Abstracts should concisely communicate a paper’s main findings and reflect key parts of the Abstract (Background, Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions).
• Text should be kept to a minimum – the Abstract is the written summary of your work; the Graphical Abstract should focus on imagery and clear statistics where relevant.
• Think about your target audience before drafting your Graphical Abstract and consider Graphical Abstracts that had captured your attention and were easily understood.
• We encourage you to use images relevant for the Graphical Abstract, rather than re-using figures from your paper.
• This example shows the key elements of a good Graphical Abstract.
• You may wish to use tools such as TidBit or Canva in preparing your Graphical Abstract.
• Please upload your Graphical Abstract as a separate document, titled ‘Graphical Abstract’ at the time of submission. Your Graphical Abstract will be peer reviewed, so please ensure you retain an editable copy. If your manuscript is accepted, then the Graphical Abstract will appear in both the print and online versions of your article.

Technical requirements

• Please refer to the BJD guidance on Figures ; use a font size larger than 11 to make the Graphical Abstract more legible.
• If possible, for branding consistency, please use the following fonts: Roboto Bold (headline texts), Open Sans Semi Bold (subtitle texts), and Open Sans Regular (body text). If these fonts are not available, please use Arial.

Structure 

The text should in general be divided into sections with the headings Abstract, Introduction, Materials and methods (or Patients and methods), Results, Discussion, References, Figure Legends, and Supporting Information for most Original Articles. 

Plain Language Summary

All Original and Review Articles should include a Plain Language Summary (PLS). A PLS will not only help with dissemination but is now a funding requirement for many funders. These should be written in plain English with a non-technical audience in mind. A PLS enables research usability, reach and impact.

General guidance 

• A PLS should be around 250 words in length. 
• Start the page with a plain language title, i.e. a simplified title that briefly explains the subject of the study or summary. 
• Please include paragraph breaks. 
• Explain all scientific terms used
• Write in the first person (e.g. ‘We found that…’).

Please include in the summary: 

• The condition, what it is, and how common (e.g. x is a common skin disease that causes xxx. It affects about xx people in the UK/worldwide). 
• Country or countries in which the researchers are based and where the study took place if different. 
• What the study aimed to find out (e.g. This study, from the UK, aimed to find out if xxx). 
• How the study was done. 
• What the study found. 
• Conclusions and potential for patient benefits and harms.

About the summaries:  

• BJD publishes PLS as online-only pages as part of a regular issue, in their own specific section.
• The PLS are freely available to all and are not behind the subscription paywall.

Example PLS:  

• Risk of infections in children and adults with eczema (2022): https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.21077
• The association between atopic dermatitis and high blood pressure (2022): https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.20916
• Experiences of rosacea and its treatment: an interpretative phenomenological analysis (2018): https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.16174

Manuscript Categories 

Review articles.

• Evidence-Based Dermatology

Original Articles

Clinical reports, correspondence.

BJD aims to publish concise, state-of-the-art review articles of recent advances in laboratory or clinical research.

Review articles may be solicited by the Editor, as part of a set of scholarly reviews, or may be submitted by authors for publication subject to peer review.

Requirements for submission:

Review articles should include

• an unstructured abstract (maximum 350 words),
• no more than 3000 words of body text,
• illustrations and figures,
• a Plain Language Summary.
• Review Articles may also include a Graphical Abstract.

Please see the Evidence-Based Dermatology section for guidance on submission of systematic reviews.

Evidenced-Based Dermatology

BJD’s Evidence-Based Dermatology section includes systematic reviews, management guidelines, critically appraised topics (CATs) and critically appraised research papers (CARPs). Before commencing a CAT or CARP, please contact the editorial office ( [email protected] ) to discuss your proposal.

Article types

Systematic Reviews

Our aim is to publish concise, high-quality systematic review articles. Systematic reviews are considered Original Articles by BJD and must follow the Original Article format.

We are very interested to receive network meta-analyses. In addition, BJD accepts living systematic reviews, and authors are encouraged to contact the editorial team ( [email protected] ) to discuss their plans for a living systematic review before submission.

Systematic reviews should include

• A structured abstract (maximum 350 words).
• Up to 3000 words of body text.
• Bulleted statements (maximum 70 words per question) in answer to the following questions:’ What’s already known about this topic?’ and ‘What does this study add?’
• The literature search must not be older than 12 months, preferably not older than 6 months.

Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews synthesize evidence from a broader review objective than a systematic review, but without losing their methodological rigor. These “exploratory reviews” identify and map the available evidence, assess knowledge gaps and opportunities for research.

• A previously registered or published protocol
• Follow the extension of the PRISMA-ScR reporting guideline
• The question of the scoping review should be based on a population-context-concept (PCC) framework; however, it is recognised that not all the elements of PCC may be relevant for the question
• A structured abstract (maximum 350 words)
• Up to 3000 words of body text

Reporting guidelines:

Reporting guidelines should be provided at the time of submission as ‘Supplementary file for review’.

• For systematic reviews and meta-analyses, follow the PRISMA statement  (including the PRISMA 2020 checklist for Abstracts).
• For systematic reviews that include a network meta-analysis, follow the PRISMA- NMA extension .
• For meta-analyses and systematic reviews on observational studies, follow the MOOSE consensus statement .
• For reviews of qualitative studies, reference the ENTREQ statement .
• Prospective registration of the systematic review on PROSPERO or a similar database is compulsory. Alternatively, the protocol can be published in a peer-reviewed journal. 
• For a systematic review protocol, use a suitable tool that facilitates the development and reporting of systematic review protocols (e.g. PRISMA-P ). For NMAs, please also take into account these additional considerations. 
• All systematic reviews must include an assessment of the risk of bias of the included studies. We strongly recommend authors follow the methods suggested by Cochrane  or another leader in evidence synthesis.
• Preferably  GRADE for pairwise comparisons, and
• CiNeMA (Confidence in Network Meta-analysis) or GRADE-NMA frameworks for NMAs .

Critically appraised topics (CATs)

CATs should focus on a specific and usually controversial relevant clinical question. The CAT should be presented to help clinicians with everyday decision making. At least some evidence must be expected that would allow meaningful conclusions. In contrast to a full systematic review, a CAT may include data from different sources, trying to argue the case from different angles.

It may include results of randomized controlled trials or it can summarize registry data and also draw in pathophysiological considerations. A systematic approach on how data were generated must be pursued and appropriate critical appraisal of the evidence presented.

Submission of a PRISMA checklist is not necessary for CATs, although authors are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the  PRISMA  reporting guidelines before beginning their work on a CAT.

CATs can be formatted as Original Articles or Research Letters, depending on the strength of the evidence available.

• Structured abstract including Clinical question/scenario and Recommendation for Clinical case.
• Clinical case generating a management question. 
• Background.
• The results or identified evidence should provide information on effect sizes with confidence intervals and be critically appraised to assess its quality.
• A meta-analysis can be conducted for the primary outcome pertaining to the research question.
• The discussion should critically summarize the identified evidence and discuss applicability to the clinical case.
• The clinical message or recommendation should provide clear clinical guidance and a management strategy; consider how to optimize shared decision making incorporating the patient perspective.
• Describe the methods used for systematic evidence gathering such as the inclusion and exclusion criteria and the methods for study quality assessment (adherence to the PRISMA guidance and use of the  Cochrane risk of bias tool  or  AMSTAR  tool are recommended.)

For further guidance, read our article on  how to write a CAT . Authors are recommended to contact the Editorial Team early with their research question ( [email protected] ). Guidance can also be provided during the writing process, and direction given about the likely publication format.

Critically appraised research papers (CARPs)

CARPs aim to alert readers to important papers from the general medical literature that are relevant to clinical practice or research in dermatology, and to offer a critical appraisal of the methodology, findings and conclusions. CARPs are often solicited - please contact the editorial office to discuss your ideas before submitting.

CARPs should:

• not exceed 750 words or 8 references, 
• have one small figure only with no more than 4 small panels OR one small table (the equivalent of one Word landscape page), 
• have no abstract or bulleted statements, 
• have no subheadings or supplementary material.

CARPs should include the following considerations

• What is already known about this topic?
• Strengths of the research (including a description of how the research advances the field).
• How valid are the results? Please comment on internal and external validity of the methods.
• Overall assessment. Please comment on whether the study’s conclusions are justified and on the application of the research to clinical practice.

Authors are encouraged to consult guidance for critical appraisal of the medical literature, including the  Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine’s Critical Appraisal tools  and  JAMA’s Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature .

Clinical practice guidelines

BJD   welcomes submission of clinical guidelines from any geographical location covering any area of dermatology. These can be pure treatment guidelines, but they can also cover diagnosis and screening. Guidelines are usually based on a systematic review of the literature (see above guidance), as well as structured expert consensus.

All guideline submissions will undergo independent peer review. Guideline developers are encouraged to contact the BJD editorial office ( [email protected] ) at the time of stakeholder review (e.g. society approval) to coordinate with the  BJD  external peer review process.

• Reporting guidelines. Authors and guideline developers must follow the  AGREE  checklist and upload the form along with their manuscript. They are advised to read the  BJD editorial  that highlights particular quality aspects of guideline development.
• BJD   gives particular emphasis to the quality of the methods used to construct the guideline, including assessment of evidence quality and a recognized method for converting to strength of recommendation (e.g.  GRADE ).
• Living guidelines are encouraged, and authors are encouraged to discuss their plans for a living guideline with the BJD Editorial Team prior to submission.
• Details of any consensus methodology need to be fully reported, as well as conflicts of interest and funding sources. Authors must follow the ACCORD guidelines and upload the form along with their manuscript.
• Potential author conflicts of interest should be minimized or mitigated, for example by excluding authors from sections relevant to their conflict of interest.
• Guidelines do not have a fixed maximum word count but should be as succinct as possible and ideally have no more than 3000 words.
• Emphasis is on the methodology and transparency for rigour of guideline development.
• Details of the systematic reviews that inform the guidelines can be provided in supplementary files, or as a separate BJD paper.

All Original Articles should include:

• A structured abstract with Background, Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions (maximum 350 words). 
• Up to 3000 words of body text (4000 words for qualitative studies).
• Bulleted statements (maximum 70 words per question) in answer to the following questions: ‘What is already known about this topic?’ and ‘What does this study add?’. Translational research papers should additionally include bulleted statements answering the question ‘What is the translational message?’. Qualitative research papers should additionally include bulleted statements answering the question ‘What are the clinical implications of this work?’.
• An ethical approval statement with the name of the approving institutional review board(s) in the Materials and methods section. 
• Contributor statement.
• A statement regarding patient involvement in the research (optional). 
• A Plain Language Summary.

BJD has different subcategories of Original Articles; please see the next section for specific submission requirements.

Article types and specific requirements

Clinical trials

The BJD publishes industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated clinical trials covering pharmacological, nonpharmacological and complex interventions. Clinical trial protocols are unlikely to be considered for publication in the  BJD . However, publishing a trial protocol in the public domain is good practice and the BJD encourages authors to do so in other suitable journals.

• The manuscript should follow the format of an Original Article, but for small studies (e.g. fewer than 50 participants) or analyses of data subsets from larger clinical trials (whether planned or post hoc), consider submission as a Research Letter (please see the Correspondence section for details).
• The trial must be  prospectively registered on a suitable trial registry , before any participants have been recruited into the trial. Include the trial registration number (e.g. NCT012345678) at the end of the abstract.  Trials that have not been prospectively registered will be rejected . For further details about registering your trial, read this editorial . 
• Ideally, the trial protocol should be submitted alongside the main manuscript, as a ‘Supplementary file for review’. Providing the study protocol enables the editorial team to confirm that all outcomes have been clearly reported as per protocol, and will facilitate the review process, but final acceptance is subject to the final editorial decision. 
• Priority will be given to manuscripts reporting the primary outcome(s) for the trial and all registered secondary outcomes for the trial. BJD discourages the publication of secondary outcomes in separate papers (‘salami slicing’) and encourages authors to report these outcomes in the same paper as the primary outcome(s) (see this  editorial ).
• BJD may consider manuscripts that do not include secondary outcomes relating to very long-term follow-up, whose time points have not yet been reached.
• To avoid publication bias, BJD encourages the submission of trials even if the outcomes do not reveal a difference between the interventions being compared (so-called ‘negative’ trials, see this  editorial ).

The following checklists should be provided at the time of submission as ‘Supplementary file for review’:

• For randomized controlled trials, please follow the  CONSORT statement  and submit a completed CONSORT checklist as Supporting Information.
• All requirements of the  CONSORT checklist  should be addressed in the manuscript, including a power calculation to show how the sample size for the study was determined.
• Abstracts for randomized controlled trials should follow the CONSORT extension for abstracts. 
• For randomized controlled trials with specific designs (e.g. pilot/feasibility; noninferiority/equivalence; cluster), data (e.g. harms) or interventions (e.g. nonpharmacological), please refer to the appropriate  extensions of the CONSORT statement .
• For randomized controlled trials involving artificial intelligence (AI) please refer to the  CONSORT-AI extension
• For nonrandomized trials, refer to the CONSORT statement or another appropriate  EQUATOR  guideline to ensure that the trial is reported clearly.

Epidemiology We welcome manuscripts based on findings of epidemiological studies that improve our understanding of skin diseases and have clinical relevance in terms of disease treatment or prevention. Please see this editorial  for more information.

• Epidemiological studies should stimulate independent thinking and challenge the status quo.
• The robustness of the data collection and methodology used is more important than whether the findings are statistically significant.
• Comprehensive studies investigating multiple (international) data sources to validate will be prioritized.
• Epidemiology manuscripts should follow the Original Article format, but for confirmatory studies or less complicated studies (which can present their findings using one table OR figure), consider submission as a Research Letter (please see the Correspondence section for details).

The following checklists should be provided at the time of submission as ‘Supplementary file for review’.

• For  observational studies , follow the  STROBE statement . Include the appropriate (cohort, case–control and cross-sectional studies) and completed  STROBE checklist .
• For  multivariable prediction models  for diagnostic or prognostic research, follow the  TRIPOD guidelines  and submit a  TRIPOD checklist  for model development and/or model validation.
• For  routinely collected health data , obtained for administrative and clinical purposes without specific a priori research goals, include a completed  REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely collected Data  (RECORD) statement  checklist .

For all epidemiological studies, we assess:

• Use of clinically relevant outcomes.
• Presence of clear sample-size calculations based on the primary outcome.
• Clear distinction between association and causality in the interpretation of the results.
• Temporality and dose–response relationship, along with the other Bradford–Hill criteria to gauge the likelihood of causality.
• The extent and dealing with (residual) confounding, in particular for studies using routinely collected data or claims data, or large population-based cohorts that were not created to study the studied association.
• Selective subgroup analyses with sufficient power avoiding data dredging.
• Appropriate statistical testing, please see the Reporting Statistics section for details.

Translational research

BJD encourages submission of basic research that has the potential to improve clinical practice in the foreseeable future. Authors should clearly communicate the potential clinical relevance of their findings.

BJD adopts the definition of translational research as described by the National Institutes of Health:

‘Translational research includes two areas of translation. One is the process of applying discoveries generated during research in the laboratory, and in preclinical studies, to the development of trials and studies in humans. The second area of translation concerns research aimed at enhancing the adoption of best practices in the community. Cost-effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies is also an important part of translational science’ ( http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RM-07-007.html ).

In addition to the usual bulleted statements for Original Articles (What is known and What is new), all manuscripts describing translational studies must also include a third set of bulleted statements (maximum 70 words) in answer to the following question:  ‘What is the translational message?’ .

• Laboratory-based studies  should show direct relevance to the understanding of the clinical features, pathogenesis or treatment of skin diseases in humans. 
• Studies performed exclusively with  nonprimary or patient-unrelated cell lines  and  studies using animals  will be considered for peer review only if accompanied by data showing their direct and genuine relevance to human dermatological conditions (read the  editorial by Eli Sprecher ).
• Manuscripts should be written with a clinical audience in mind. Authors are encouraged to provide one or more summary diagrams to complement their written text to explain complex or novel scientific concepts.
• Provide data from multiple laboratory techniques that support the conclusions (data generated using a single technique are usually insufficient).
• Novel DNA or amino acid sequences should be deposited in a public database such as GenBank or the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), including the accession number in the submission.

Please refer to the Data Presentation section to see how the data should be presented.

Reporting checklists should be provided at the time of submission as a ‘Supplementary file for review’, but if there are no guidelines, we have provided some reporting guidance.

• Immunohistochemistry/immunofluorescence . Provide all antibody sources, preferably with clone names for clear identification and details of secondary antibodies and their conjugated fluorochromes or enzymes. Clearly state negative controls along with the data. Include dilutions, incubation conditions, detection methods and methods of data analysis in the methodology. Support expression data by Western blotting and/or reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR). 
• Quantitative PCR data . Follow the  MIQE guidelines . This should include details on RNA quality, reverse-transcription conditions, PCR conditions including PCR primer sequences, how reference genes were chosen and how the data were analysed.
• Proteomics and genomics . Full and comprehensive description of all methods used should be provided as Supporting Information along with a detailed list of all software, as well as all details pertaining to the quality of the data obtained (e.g. reading depth).
• Genetic association studies . Please include an estimation of the effect size and statistical significance, as well as an estimation of the study power, to allow readers to interpret the findings appropriately. Consider the issues of multiple testing, which are inherent in genome-wide analyses (including transcriptome analysis). Novel genetic associations should be replicated in an independent collection.
• Biomarker association studies . Follow the  REMARK guidelines .
• Flow cytometry . Data plots should be included in the main article or in Supporting Information. The data could be compiled (in addition to plots) into table format for ease of interpretation. Types of plot, labelling of plots, labelling of plot axes, and information required in figure legends are given in Alvarez et al. ’s  Publishing flow cytometry data .

Mutation reports

Mutation reports will only be considered for publication when they represent substantial advances in our understanding of disease pathogenesis or manifestations as follows:

• Variants in a new gene associated with a well-defined phenotype, including at least two different variants in two unrelated families. Bioinformatics analysis and biological functional assays are required.
• Reports describing previously reported mutations with a markedly different phenotype.
• Large ( n > 20) series of patients carrying mutations in known genes associated with typical phenotypes that provide new, novel insights into genotype–phenotype correlations. Exception will be made in the case of the first confirmatory report after the initial report of a new gene.
• Reports of novel disease-causing mutations in a gene known to be associated with the disease must contain novel functional data explaining the function of the gene and/or mechanisms of action of the mutations.

In all cases, mutation pathogenicity should be assessed according to established guidelines such as recommendations from the  American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics .

Outcomes and qualitative research

We are interested in publishing studies that provide substantial insight into the perspectives and/or experiences of individuals or groups (e.g. patients, carers, clinicians) in relation to the context, process and outcomes of dermatology or dermatological care.

This includes but is not restricted to:

• Qualitative studies exploring psychological wellbeing; social functioning; patient–professional communication; treatment decision making; clinician training; and service content, organization and delivery of care. 
• Interventional studies where qualitative components may inform the intervention, or its implementation, or serve to evaluate outcomes and process issues.
• Studies on the development and/or validation of outcomes measures that are useful for clinical trials, observational studies, clinical audits and routine care, particularly patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs). 
• Studies on the development of core outcome sets in dermatology to improve the reporting of clinical trials, particularly papers defining core outcome domains and validation studies for instruments to measure the core domains.
• Outcomes from consensus meetings. These may also be submitted, provided they progress the core outcomes set, and the methodology employed is fully and transparently reported.
• Mixed-methods studies: studies incorporating both qualitative and quantitative elements. 
• Studies reporting methodological perspectives in qualitative or mixed-methods research and outcomes research (e.g. item response theory, classical test theory, consensus seeking).
• In addition to the usual bulleted statements for Original Articles (What is known and What is new), manuscripts describing qualitative or mixed-method studies must also include a third set of bulleted statements (maximum 70 words) in answer to the following question: ‘What are the clinical implications of this work?’
• Any quotations or images used should not contain unique contextual features that would enable participants to be identified. 
• Demonstrate that due consideration has been given to problem formulation, researcher characteristics and reflexivity, sampling strategy, units of study, techniques to enhance trustworthiness and transferability in qualitative research.
• Demonstrate that due consideration has been given to formulation of a clear aim of an instrument or core outcomes set development process, the conceptual framework underlying instrument development, the qualitative research in the development process of an instrument, the clinimetric analyses involved in the validation of an instrument, and aspects of feasibility and interpretability (instrument development or validation research).
• When reporting on the development and/or validation of an instrument, do submit the instrument of interest itself for review. Please ensure that you have valid copyright permission relating to the development or validation of the instrument. As a minimum requirement, our reviewers must be able to judge the face validity of the instrument of interest.

When appropriate, reporting checklists should be provided at the time of submission as a ‘Supplementary file for review’.

• Consider, for the content of a core outcome set development study protocol, the  COS-STAP statement .
• Consider and address, for qualitative research, the  SRQR (Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research) recommendations .
• For mixed-methods studies, consider the SRQR and the appropriate  EQUATOR  checklist for the methodology of the quantitative element of the mixed methods (for example, the  STROBE  or  CONSORT  checklist).

Global health and equity

The Global Health and Equity Section of the BJD showcases and cultivates rigorous equity-oriented research and scholarly work in the area of global health and equity. We take global health dermatology to mean an area of research and practice ‘that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide’, 1 both on an individual and public health level. Global health dermatology particularly prioritizes skin conditions affecting vulnerable people around the world. Health equity is the ‘commitment to reduce—and, ultimately, eliminate—disparities in health and in its determinants, including social determinants […] striving for the highest possible standard of health for all people and giving special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk’. 2

• Research will be evaluated from all regions of the world, including research related to vulnerable populations within the authors’ own country.
• This section welcomes submissions in all article categories, including original articles, systematic reviews, clinical trials, rapid responses, perspectives, and letters. Please follow our formatting guidelines for those article types.
• All topics related to global health and equity research conducted in a rigorous and ethically sound manner are welcome, and include, but are not limited to capacity building, race and health, sexual and gender minority health, indigenous health, climate change, healthcare policy, global burden of disease, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases including cancers, HIV/AIDS, neglected tropical diseases, telemedicine for access to care, training programs, humanitarian crises, and global healthcare delivery and innovation.

Guidelines for authors: The BJD follows ICMJE Authorship guidelines 3

• If you are interested in submitting to the Global Health and Equity section, please indicate this in your cover letter.
• Consensus statement on measures to promote equitable authorship in the publication of research from international partnerships - Morton - 2022 - Anaesthesia
• Explaining the rationale for reflexivity statements .
• Example reflexivity statement (from: Morton, B., Vercueil, A., Masekela, R., Heinz, E., Reimer, L., Saleh, S., Kalinga, C., Seekles, M., Biccard, B., Chakaya, J., Abimbola, S., Obasi, A. and Oriyo, N. (2022), Consensus statement on measures to promote equitable authorship in the publication of research from international partnerships. Anaesthesia, 77: 264-276.  https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.15597 ).
• For research involving primary data analysis (e.g. patient recruitment, treatment in existing facilities, and follow-up), locally based researchers and/or researchers who identify as being from the affected community should be included in all stages of the research process, and should be included in the authorship.
• For work involving secondary data analysis, we align with Lancet Global Health and “strongly encourage those embarking on secondary analyses [e.g. publicly available data] to recruit, and involve at all stages of the research and publication process, suitably qualified local researchers.”
• If research involves data, participants, infrastructure, or personnel from a particular country or countries, papers reviewed by the BJD Global Health and Equity section require that at least one author from that country needs to be included in the research process and meet criteria to be a co-author on that paper (e.g. we will not publish a paper about Kenya if it does not include a Kenyan co-author who was involved in the research process).
• We additionally encourage authors to consider how authorship can affect capacity building in their particular setting, and to consider engaging early career investigators, women, and minorities in the research process and ultimately in authorship.
• In addition to authorship inclusion and order, authors should consider, and address where applicable: buy-in from local stakeholders prior to funding; ensuring sustainability; including true collaborators on the ground; understanding historical, cultural, political and sociological contexts; acknowledgement of efforts of local teams and community groups.
• The following is a helpful resource on this topic: Using scientific authorship criteria as a tool for equitable inclusion in global health research .

BJD publishes clinical reports that make a substantial contribution to our understanding of clinical dermatology. Clinical reports can be case reports, case series or small cohorts. We expect clinical reports published in the BJD to raise new hypotheses, as described by the CARE guidelines and serve our readership by 'Offering early signals of benefits, harms, and value' in the context of skin disease. We seek to ensure that such improvements to skin health are broad in scope, and we welcome manuscripts that bring novel insights that would benefit diverse communities. Reports demonstrating different presentations of skin disease in skin of colour and other reports that will have an impact on global health are of interest to our international readership. An overview of tools to improve clinical reports can be found here.

Clinical reports can be submitted in different formats, depending on their novelty and relevance. We ask authors to carefully consider these factors and to submit their paper in the right format, to decrease the need for reformatting.

Original Article

This format is reserved for a few large case series, usually describing new or not-well known diseases. We expect them to be prospectively planned and describing consecutive cases. If they report the results of a therapeutic intervention, they will benefit from using standardised outcomes, ideally reported with methods that reduce bias, such as blinded assessors. Please see the general guidance for Original Articles section of the instructions to authors for full details.

Research Letter

Most clinical reports will be published in this format.  When they raise new safety signals, we suggest that authors check they comply with the requirements described in this editorial . Please see the Research Letters section of the instructions to authors for full details.

Image Correspondence

This is the required format for exemplar clinical photographs that illustrate a new clinical presentation in a single or few patients. The best submissions may be selected for the cover image of the journal. Please see the Image Correspondence section of the instructions to authors for full details.

Please also see the Editorial Policies section for details on our patient privacy policy. Regarding clinical images, please do not place eye bars on patient photographs as they do not protect their privacy, and instead ensure you have patient consent for publication.

Requirements for submission

• It is mandatory to submit BAD’s Patient Consent form for publication at the time of submission for all clinical reports or ensure you have emailed a copy to [email protected] by the time your paper is accepted. 

Reporting guideline

• Follow the CARE guidelines as a guiding framework for your manuscript.

Types of letters:

Research Letters

Research Letters are the most prestigious form of BJD correspondence and are for publishing preliminary research findings that may lead to more substantial research studies. They could also be short summaries of primary research. We would like them to be concise, thought-provoking and of interest to clinicians.

Examples include:

• pilot studies whose aim is to test research methodology,
• preliminary data to inform subsequent study design,
• small observational or experimental studies,
• studies that extend what has recently been published by others,
• studies whose results provide a focused message that can be presented in a concise format,
• studies that use a single research method, where two or three complementary methods would be the norm for an Original Article.

BJD   research letters should

• have one small figure only with no more than four small panels OR one small table (the equivalent of one landscape page in Word),
• have no abstract or bulleted statements,

To make it easier, we recommend using this  template for Research Letters .

Rapid responses

Rapid responses allow readers to participate and debate recently published BJD articles. We encourage rapid responses to be sent when the paper is online in the Accepted Article or Early View section so that the letter can be published in the same issue as the article itself, with a response from the authors if possible.

They should add to the authors’ interpretation, enrich the original paper and increase the value for readers. They should be objective, referenced, respectful to other authors, and concise.

Rapid responses should

• not exceed 450 words,
• have a maximum of 4 references,
• have at most one table or figure.

Perspectives articles

These articles provide an opportunity to address any topic relevant to dermatology by articulating a new point of view that is based on evidence or experience from patients and physicians alike, particularly those that may generate philosophical debate.

We especially encourage perspectives from dermatology patients, which could be cowritten with your clinician.

We encourage them to be concise and thought-provoking, and prompt new ways of thinking, but they should be written in a simple and easily accessible format that a wide international audience can understand.

We welcome submissions on all topics relevant to dermatology, and encourage diversity of gender, race/ethnicity, country of origin and background among Perspectives authors.

Our goal is to publish Perspectives relevant to the skin health of all communities, including previously understudied groups and vulnerable populations. This includes the health of the LGBTQ community, people with skin of colour, older patients and those with understudied diseases, as described in this  editorial .

Perspectives should

• not exceed 750 words, 
• have at most 8 references,
• have no more than one table or figure,
• be formatted in one continuous section, with no bulleted statements or abstract.

Patient-led submissions:

We especially encourage perspectives from dermatology patients, which could be co-written with your clinician. These pieces may be on a broad range of topics relating to the patient experience, but their primary aim is to inform and educate clinicians about the patient’s viewpoint on either the condition, challenges faced or treatment. To further promote and champion the patient viewpoint, we are expanding the Perspectives submission type for patients, carers and patient societies. Although these groups are welcome to submit written papers, we also encourage their submissions in a different format. These may include (but are not limited to) images (e.g. artwork, cartoons, infographics, photographs, illustrations, diagrams), poems, videos, stories, essays and mixed media. If you are thinking about submitting a patient Perspectives piece, please read this editorial. We would like to support patients who wish to submit to the Perspectives section, so please contact  [email protected]  with any questions. Our Patient Associate Editors will support these submissions through the editorial process.

Correspondence: Image Gallery

BJD welcomes submissions of exemplar clinical photographs and novel scientific images for the BJD Image Gallery section. As champions of global skin health, we will consider clinical images that reflect the presentation of dermatological disease across all skin types. In particular, we seek to redress the balance in the lack of representative images of skin of colour in the existing literature, where there is evidence presented to support the clinical diagnosis proposed. Please see this  editorial .

• Composite images with up to three panels are permitted, for example providing histopathology, immunohistochemistry or electron microscopy to accompany the clinical image.
• Submit each panel as a separate file as TIFF or JPEG up to 300 DPI, and remove any labels such as A, B, C, but please label the legends carefully.
• Please do not place eye bars on patient photographs as they do not protect their privacy, and instead ensure you have  patient consent  for publication. Please see the Editorial Policies section for details on our patient privacy policy.
• Include a concise, scholarly caption of up to 100 words and up to two references. Photographs or images should be of high quality and have potential to alter dermatology practice.

A separate figure legend should not be submitted. Images will be selected based on scientific merit, originality, relevance to the journal readership and value added to our understanding of dermatological science. Essential supplementary files may be supplied for review, but not for publication, to best support the proposed diagnosis in the submission. Additionally, some of the accepted Image Gallery submissions may be adapted to appear on  BJD ’s social media platforms, and the best submissions may be selected for the cover image of the journal.

References  

References should be in Vancouver format and appear as consecutive, unbracketed superscript numbers in the text, e.g. in our previous reports 1,2  and those of Smith et al ., 3–5  and should be listed numerically in the reference list at the end of the article.

Format references as below, using standard (MEDLINE) abbreviations for journal titles. If there are more than four authors, include the first three authors followed by et al . If there are more than six editors of a book, include the first five authors followed by  et al . 

• de Berker DAR, Baran R, Dawber RPR. The nail in dermatological diseases. In:  Baran and Dawber’s Diseases of the Nails and Their Management  (Baran R, Dawber RPR, de Berker DAR, Haneke E, Tosti A, eds), 3rd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd, 2001; 172–92. 
• Shuster S. The nature and consequence of Karl Marx’s skin disease.  Br J Dermatol  2008;  158 :1–3. 
• Graham-Brown R, Burns T.  Lecture Notes: Dermatology . Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. 
• Smith A. Select committee report into social care in the community. Available at: http://www.dhss.gov.uk/reports/report015285.html (last accessed 7 November 2003). 

If a reference falls into a different category (e.g. conference proceedings, prescribing information), or if in doubt, please provide as much information as possible. 

We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote for reference management and formatting 

Tables   

• Include tables at the end of the manuscript, each on a separate page. 
• Tables should be no more than 1.5 pages long in Word (or 1 page for Research Letters).
• The font size in tables should be 11 point. 
• Please submit tables in an editable format in Word and not as an Excel file, image or PDF. 
• Include a brief legend for each table.
• Number each table consecutively as cited in the text as Table 1, Tables 2 and 3 etc.
• Number supplementary tables consecutively starting at Table S1. 
• If the Editor considers that there are too many tables in an original article, they may either request some of the tables be moved to supporting information or request a summary table. 

Figures  

• Submit figures as separate files.
• If a figure has more than one panel, each panel should be submitted as a separate file with a brief description of each panel given in the figure legend. Please ensure that each file is named appropriately (e.g. Figure 1a, Figure 1b). 
• Please include all figure legends at the end of the manuscript (and not the figure itself).
• Number each figure consecutively as cited in the text: Figure 1, Figures 2, 3 etc.
• Number supplementary figures consecutively starting at Figure S1.
• Figures in Original Articles and Review Articles should have a maximum of six panels. 
• Figures in Research Letters and Image Correspondence should have a maximum of four panels (exceptions can be made at the Editor’s discretion) and figure panels should NOT contain a table.
• Ensure that all text in figures is easily readable (font size 11) when the figure is printed on an A4 page. 
• Colour illustrations are welcomed, and all colour is published free of charge in BJD. 
• Please obtain permission to reproduce previously published figures or tables. Please provide any accreditation text required by the copyright holder. 
• Digital images should not be manipulated (e.g. contrast, brightness) unless the manipulation is applied to the whole image and does not modify the information in any way. Where images have obviously been cropped the full image should be submitted as a supplementary file for review (for example an entire image of a Western blot with molecular-weight markers). 
• A certain degree of image processing is acceptable, but the final image must faithfully represent the original data. Image acquisition and processing software must be included in the methods. Authors should be prepared to supply the editors with original images on request. 
• Histopathology slides should provide scale bars or the level of magnification used. 
• Vector graphics (e.g. line artwork) should be saved in encapsulated postscript format (.eps) at a minimum of 800 dpi. 
• Bitmap files (e.g. photographs) should be saved in tagged image file format (.tif) or JPEG at a minimum of 300 dpi. 
• We require all clinical images to have patient consent for publication (see Editorial Policies on patient privacy). Please specify whether patient consent includes use in social media. Eye bars or masking of the eyes should be avoided as they do not protect the anonymity of the patients. All case reports must have patient consent for publication before submission. 

Supporting Information  

BJD   encourages the submission of underlying datasets, appendices, video files etc. as online-only Supporting Information. Supporting Information should be uploaded during manuscript submission using the file designation ‘Supplementary file for review’.  BJD  has no restriction around the amount of Supporting Information. 

• Supporting Information should be important ancillary information that is relevant to the main article and is published online only. 
• Reference to Supporting Information in the manuscript should be sufficiently specific to allow readers to understand what is being referenced. All tables and figures included in the Supporting Information should be cited in the manuscript. 
• Please label Supporting Information in the format ‘Table S1’, ‘Figure S1’. Any Supporting Information consisting of just text should be ‘Appendix S1’ etc. 
• Supporting Information will be published as submitted and will not be corrected or checked for scientific content, typographical errors or functionality. 
• Supporting Information is not permitted for correspondence, including Research Letters. 

Data Presentation  

• It is recommended that data are displayed in their raw form and not in a way that conceals their distribution. Individual data should be presented as dot plots next to the average for the group with appropriate error bars. The methods should be described in enough detail that the experimental conditions can be repeated in another laboratory. If any equipment or specific reagent used is detailed, provide the name of the manufacturer, city, state (if applicable) and country.  
• Any materials generated during the study (e.g. cell lines, animals, plasmids or antibodies) should be made available to other researchers, where this is practicable. 
• Novel DNA or amino acid sequences should be submitted to a public database such as GenBank or the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the accession number quoted. 

Reporting Statistics  

Good reporting is important as it ensures a manuscript can be understood by a reader, replicated by a researcher, used to make a clinical decision, and included in a systematic review. 

Reporting methods 

• Describe the type of study, e.g. randomized clinical trial phase III, pilot, case–control, meta-analysis etc. 
• Indicate the aim of the statistical analysis (primary objective, secondary objective, exploratory or ancillary analysis). 
• Describe the statistical methods in the order in which they are used in the results. 
• Make it clear which statistical test was used for which variable. 
• State if any assumptions were checked and how. 
• Describe how missing data were handled (if data are missing). 
• Describe any planned sensitivity or subgroup analyses. 
• If relevant, include a sample-size calculation, with sufficient detail so it can be verified, and report the minimal clinically important difference (if possible). 
• Report the alpha level (one or two sided) and the statistical package. 
• Describe with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. For more details about reporting standards, please see the  ICJME recommendations . 

Reporting results 

• Present in the same order of importance as described in the methods. 
• Include effect sizes and their 95% confidence intervals with the appropriate degree of precision, in addition to P -values.  
• Present adjusted data for multiple testing. 
• Include both absolute and relative measures. 
• Provide enough detail that the results can be incorporated into other analyses; for example, in future meta-analytical studies if reporting a continuous outcome, provide mean (standard deviation), while for categorical outcomes when reporting relative summary statistics, please include the frequency of the outcome (numerator) over the total sample observed (denominator). In addition to these recommendations, all applicable general and study-specific  SAMPL  guidelines should be followed. Further guidance on statistical reporting in the BJD is available in this editorial: Guidelines for statistical reporting in the British Journal of Dermatology .

Sex and gender reporting

Please ensure that the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are used correctly .

We recommend following the SAGER guidelines for reporting of sex and gender.

Post-Acceptance 

Once your manuscript has been accepted, you will receive a final decision letter along with a request for the following:  

• An author video. 
• A set of journal club slides. 

All of the above are optional and you can choose to submit them or not. The reason we ask for these additional elements is to add value to your article. 

Author Video 

BJD has the option for authors to embed video and audio files within their final article. These files should be uploaded using either the ‘Embedded Video’ or ‘Embedded Audio’ file designation during submission. Authors should upload a transcript of any speech within the video and/or audio files, using the ‘Transcription’ file designation. 

• Embedded Video: A video file that would be embedded within the final article. These files will be subject to peer review. 
• Embedded Audio: An audio file that would be embedded within the final article. These files will be subject to peer review. 
• Transcription: A typed version of any speech within the video and/or audio files.  

If you have additional video or audio files, which are not intended to be part of the final article, these can be upload using the ‘Supporting Information’ file designation. The maximum file size is 350 MB. 

General guidance for BJD videos 

We do recommend that authors submit video files. Videos are great promotional tools and are another way for you to explain your research to a wider audience. Generally, we recommend that videos be limited to 2 minutes in length for ease of distribution on the BJD social media channels. They may recapitulate 'What is already known about this topic' and 'What does this study add,' or similarly summarize the article. 

Tips for recording 

• Set the camera or phone on a stable surface or a tripod if you have access to one. 
• Professional lighting equipment is not required.  
• Ensure that the light source is not behind the subject as this may cause a silhouette effect.  
• If you have access to a microphone then consider using this rather than the built-in microphone in the camera or phone. 

Journal Club Slides 

We need your help in preparing a set of PowerPoint slides, using the standard BJD   template. The slides include the following: 

• Title slide, with authors and institutions; an introductory slide on ‘What is already known about this topic?’; and a slide on ‘What does this study add?’ highlighting the incremental knowledge that your study generates. The ‘What is already known’ and ‘What does this study add?’ sections can be populated directly from the corresponding sections of the paper.  
• The final slide in the presentation invites readers to contribute a rapid response to the article with a link to the author instructions for the  BJD  Letters to the Editor section.  
• Please aim to include about three bullet points per slide. The methods and results section can be spread over three slides each. None of the text should be smaller than 18 point. Please avoid adding references to the slides because these can be difficult to read. 
• If you would like to use particular images from your paper, please add them to your presentation. Please bear in mind that complicated tables containing lots of data may not project well in a presentation and may be best described in a few bulleted statements, rather than including the whole table. It is interesting for your colleagues to see who has done the research, and we have included slides in our template for photographs of the lead researcher at the start of the presentation and the whole team at the end. 

Once ready, please submit to the BJD Editorial Office ( [email protected] ). You may need to respond to queries from the editorial team. 

Once accepted, your BJD journal club PowerPoint slide set will be available from the BJD website, alongside your article. The slide set is free for readers of the journal to use for their local journal club presentations worldwide. 

Production 

Licence to publish and open access options .

You will have the option to pay an open access fee so that your paper will be made freely available online immediately upon publication. 

After your manuscript is accepted, you must sign a licence to publish agreement on our Author Services website. You may choose between the open access options, which carry a charge and allow your paper to be freely accessibly to all users; or a standard licence, which does not carry a charge and makes your paper available to journal subscribers. 

BJD articles can be published under the following types of licences: 

• Standard licence to publish ( Oxford University Press (OUP) Journals, Standard Publication Model ) 
• Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY)  
• Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence (CC BY-NC) 
• Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND) 

Your funding agencies may have specific requirements for what type of open access licence to use. Please see Creative Commons licences for more information, and please see the Licences, copyright and re-use rights page for more information about our standard licence to publish. Please check with your funding body if you are unsure of any licence requirements. 

Manuscript Charges 

Author services .

You can pay open access, page and colour charges on the same Author Services site you used to sign your licence to publish. You can pay immediately online or request an invoice by email or post. You may also refer the charges to an institutional prepayment account. Any applicable discounts can also be applied prior to payment. 

You can pay your open access charges immediately after you sign your licence. You cannot pay page or colour charges until production of your manuscript is complete. 

OA Licence Charges 

Charges for the open access licence options offered by BJD are listed below. The standard licence to publish does not carry a charge.  

Creative Commons Attribution licence £3,416

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence £3,416

Editorial Policy 

BJD follows the ICMJE criteria for authorship and requires authors to adhere to it based on the following four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Corresponding authorship

BJD's policy is to allow only one corresponding author for an article and they should be designated at the time of submission. Changes to authorship are not allowed after acceptance unless there are exceptional circumstances, in which case an email will need to be sent to the Editor at [email protected] explaining the rationale for such a change. The Journal will then follow COPE’s process to ensure all authors agree to the changes before making such changes.

Group authorship

For large groups of authors (e.g. more than 100 authors), a smaller group should be designated as the authors acting on behalf of the group. All named authors must fulfil the ICMJE authorship criteria and fill in both the disclosures and author consent forms. If the large multiauthor group would like to be listed as a group name rather an individual, please follow the recommendation provided by the ICMJE.

Acknowledging contributors

Please do ensure you have permission in writing from anyone you choose to acknowledge in your paper.

Artificial intelligence

BJD follows COPE’s policy that artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, cannot be a named author. These tools can neither meet the requirements for authorship as defined by the ICMJE criteria nor declare conflicts of interest or manage copyright and license agreements.

If AI tools have been used to write the paper, for the production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, please disclose it in the Materials and Methods section of the paper including what tool was used and how. Authors are responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.​

Ethical approval

For studies on people.

All clinical investigations reported must be conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki.

All studies must conform to appropriate ethical standards and must have been approved by the relevant ethical committees and institutional review board(s). A statement to this effect with the exact name of the approving institutional review board(s) should be included in the Materials and methods section of all papers. This information may be relevant for Research Letters or Letters to the Editor.

Patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers should not be used, especially in illustrative material. Moreover, if your study is based in a single centre or in a small-hospital setting and the study is based on a case series with a detailed description of each patient, please ensure that you have informed consent for publication unless the data have been suitably anonymized.

Observational studies using routinely collected anonymous data from regional or national cancer registries, claims data from insurance companies, or data from other national registries do not need ethical approval. If that is the case, please state accordingly in the methods.

For studies on animals

All animal studies should have the relevant approval and follow the ARRIVE guidelines. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Conflicts of interest

Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships between themselves and others that might be perceived to conflict with their current work in the past 36 months. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist. If no conflicts exist, state ‘The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest’. For more details, please refer to the ICMJE website about reporting conflicts of interest .

Patient Policy 

Patient involvement in research.

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Writing an Effective & Supportive Recommendation Letter

Sarvenaz sarabipour.

1 Institute for Computational Medicine and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Sarah J. Hainer

2 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Emily Furlong

3 Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Nafisa M. Jadavji

4 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Midwestern University, Glendale, United States

5 Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Charlotte M. de Winde

6 MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

7 Department of Molecular Cell Biology & Immunology, Amsterdam UMC Locatie VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Natalia Bielczyk

8 Welcome Solutions, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

9 Stichting Solaris Onderzoek en Ontwikkeling, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Aparna P. Shah

10 The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Author Contributions

Writing recommendation letters on behalf of students and other early-career researchers is an important mentoring task within academia. An effective recommendation letter describes key candidate qualities such as academic achievements, extracurricular activities, outstanding personality traits, participation in and dedication to a particular discipline, and the mentor’s confidence in the candidate’s abilities. In this Words of Advice, we provide guidance to researchers on composing constructive and supportive recommendation letters, including tips for structuring and providing specific and effective examples, while maintaining a balance in language and avoiding potential biases.

Introduction

A letter of recommendation or a reference letter is a statement of support for a student or an early-career researcher (ECR; a non-tenured scientist who may be a research trainee, postdoctoral fellow, laboratory technician, or junior faculty colleague) who is a candidate for future employment, promotion, education, or funding opportunities. Letters of recommendation are commonly requested at different stages of an academic research career and sometimes for transitioning to a non-academic career. Candidates need to request letters early on and prepare relevant information for the individual who is approached for recommendation [ 1 , 2 ]. Writing recommendation letters in support of ECRs for career development opportunities is an important task undertaken frequently by academics. ECRs can also serve as mentors during their training period and may be asked to write letters for their mentees. This offers the ECRs an excellent opportunity to gain experience in drafting these important documents, but may present a particular challenge for individuals with little experience. In general, a letter of recommendation should present a well-documented evaluation and provide sufficient evidence and information about an individual to assist a person or a selection committee in making their decision on an application [ 1 ]. Specifically, the letter should address the purpose for which it is written (which is generally to provide support of the candidate’s application and recommendation for the opportunity) and describe key candidate qualities, the significance of the work performed, the candidate’s other accomplishments and the mentor’s confidence in the candidate’s abilities. It should be written in clear and unbiased language. While a poorly written letter may not result in loss of the opportunity for the candidate, a well-written one can help an application stand out from the others, thus well-enhancing the candidate’s chances for the opportunity.

Letter readers at review, funding, admissions, hiring and promotion committees need to examine the letter objectively with a keenness for information on the quality of the candidate’s work and perspective on their scientific character [ 6 ]. However well-intentioned, letters can fall short of providing a positive, effective, and supportive document [ 1 , 3 – 5 ]. To prevent this, it is important to make every letter personal; thus, writing letters requires time and careful consideration. This article draws from our collective experiences as ECRs and the literature to highlight best practices and key elements for those asked to provide recommendation letters for their colleagues, students, or researchers who have studied or trained in their classroom or research laboratory. We hope that these guidelines will be helpful for letter writers to provide an overall picture of the candidate’s capabilities, potential and professional promise.

Decide on whether to write the letter

Before you start, it is important to evaluate your relationship with the candidate and ability to assess their skills and abilities honestly. Consider how well and in what context you know the person, as well as whether you can be supportive of their application [ 7 ]. Examine the description of the opportunity for which the letter is being requested ( Figure 1 ). Often you will receive a request by a student or a researcher whom you know very well and have interacted with in different settings – in and out of the classroom, your laboratory or that of a colleague, or within your department – and whose performance you find to be consistently satisfactory or excellent. Sometimes a mentee may request a recommendation letter when still employed or working with you, their research advisor. This can come as an unpleasant surprise if you are unaware that the trainee was seeking other opportunities (for instance, if they haven’t been employed with you for long, or have just embarked on a new project). While the mentee should be transparent about their goals and searching for opportunities, you should as a mentor offer to provide the letter for your mentee (see Table 1 ).

First, it is important to establish whether you are equipped to write a strong letter of support. If not, it is best to have a candid conversation with the applicant and discuss alternative options or opportunities. If you are in a position to write a strong letter of support, first acquire information regarding the application and the candidate, draft a letter in advance (see Box 1 ) and submit the letter on time. When drafting the letter, incorporate specific examples, avoid biases, and discuss the letter with the candidate (see Tables 1 – 2 for specific examples). After submission, store a digital copy for potential future use for the same candidate.

Key do’s and don’ts when being asked to write a letter of recommendation

Other requests may be made by a candidate who has made no impression on you, or only a negative one. In this case, consider the candidate’s potential and future goals, and be fair in your evaluation. Sending a negative letter or a generic positive letter for individuals you barely know is not helpful to the selection committee and can backfire for the candidate. It can also, in some instances, backfire for you if a colleague accepts a candidate based on your generic positive letter when you did not necessarily fully support that individual. For instance, letter writers sometimes stretch the truth to make a candidate sound better than they really are, thinking it is helpful. If you do not know the applicant well enough or feel that you cannot be supportive, you are not in a strong position to write the recommendation letter and should decline the request, being open about why you are declining to write the letter. Also, be selective about writing on behalf of colleagues who may be in one’s field but whose work is not well known to you. If you have to read the candidate’s curriculum vitae to find out who they are and what they have done, then you may not be qualified to write the letter [ 8 ].

When declining a request to provide a letter of support, it is important to explain your reasoning to the candidate and suggest how they might improve their prospects for the future [ 8 ]. If the candidate is having a similar problem with other mentors, try to help them identify a more appropriate referee or to explore whether they are making an appropriate application in the first place. Suggest constructive steps to improve relationships with mentors to identify individuals to provide letters in the future. Most importantly, do not let the candidate assume that all opportunities for obtaining supportive letters of recommendation have been permanently lost. Emphasize the candidate’s strengths by asking them to share a favourite paper, assignment, project, or other positive experience that may have taken place outside of your class or lab, to help you identify their strengths. Finally, discuss with the candidate their career goals to help them realize what they need to focus on to become more competitive or steer them in a different career direction. This conversation can mark an important step and become a great interaction and mentoring opportunity for ECRs.

Examine the application requirements

Once you decide to write a recommendation letter, it is important to know what type and level of opportunity the candidate is applying for, as this will determine what should be discussed in the letter ( Figure 1 ). You should carefully read the opportunity posting description and/or ask the candidate to summarize the main requirements and let you know the specific points that they find important to highlight. Pay close attention to the language of the position announcement to fully address the requested information and tailor the letter to the specific needs of the institution, employer, or funding organisation. In some instances, a waiver form or an option indicating whether or not the candidate waives their right to see the recommendation document is provided. If the candidate queries a waiver decision, note that often referees are not allowed to send a letter that is not confidential and that there may be important benefits to maintaining the confidentiality of letters (see Table 1 ). Specifically, selection committees may view confidential letters as having greater credibility and, value and some letter writers may feel less reserved in their praise of candidates in confidential letters.

Acquire candidate information and discuss letter content

To acquire appropriate information about the candidate, one or more of the following documents may be valuable: a resume or curriculum vitae (CV), a publication or a manuscript, an assignment or exam written for your course, a copy of the application essay or personal statement, a transcript of academic records, a summary of current work, and specific recommendation forms or questionnaires (if provided) [ 9 ]. Alternatively, you may ask the candidate to complete a questionnaire asking for necessary information and supporting documents [ 10 ]. Examine the candidate’s CV and provide important context to the achievements listed therein. Tailor the letter for the opportunity using these documents as a guide, but do not repeat their contents as the candidate likely submits them separately. Even the most articulate of candidates may find it difficult to describe their qualities in writing [ 11 ]. Furthermore, a request may be made by a person who has made a good impression, but for whom you lack significant information to be able to write a strong letter. Thus, even if you know a candidate well, schedule a brief in-person, phone, or virtual meeting with them to 1) fill in gaps in your knowledge about them, 2) understand why they are applying for this particular opportunity, 3) help bring their past accomplishments into sharper focus, and 4) discuss their short- and long-term goals and how their current studies or research activities relate to the opportunity they are applying for and to these goals. Other key information to gather from the applicant includes the date on which the recommendation letter is due, as well as details on how to submit it.

For most applications (for both academic and non-academic opportunities), a letter of recommendation will need to cover both scholarly capabilities and achievements as well as a broader range of personal qualities and experiences beyond the classroom or the laboratory. This includes extracurricular experiences and traits such as creativity, tenacity, and collegiality. If necessary, discuss with the candidate what they would like to see additionally highlighted. As another example of matching a letter with its purpose, a letter for a fellowship application for a specific project should discuss the validity and feasibility of the project, as well as the candidate’s qualifications for fulfilling the project.

Draft the letter early and maintain a copy

Another factor that greatly facilitates letter writing is drafting one as soon as possible after you have taught or trained the candidate, while your impressions are still clear. You might consider encouraging the candidate to make their requests early [ 11 ]. These letters can be placed in the candidate’s portfolio and maintained in your own files for future reference. If you are writing a letter in response to a request, start drafting it well in advance and anticipate multiple rounds of revision before submission. Once you have been asked by a candidate to write a letter, that candidate may return frequently, over a number of years, for additional letters. Therefore, maintain a digital copy of the letter for your records and for potential future applications for the same candidate.

Structure your letter

In the opening, you should introduce yourself and the candidate, state your qualifications and explain how you became acquainted with the candidate, as well as the purpose of the letter, and a summary of your recommendation ( Table 2 ). To explain your relationship with the candidate you should fully describe the capacity in which you know them: the type of experience, the period during which you worked with the candidate, and any special assignments or responsibilities that the candidate performed under your guidance. For instance, the letter may start with: “This candidate completed their postdoctoral training under my supervision. I am pleased to be able to provide my strongest support in recommending them for this opportunity.” You may also consider ranking the candidate among similar level candidates within the opening section to give an immediate impression of your thoughts. Depending on the position, ranking the candidate may also be desired by selection committees, and may be requested within the letter. For instance, the recommendation form or instructions may ask you to rank the candidate in the top 1%, 5%, 10%, etc., of applicants. You could write "the student is in the top 5% of undergraduate students I have trained" Or “There are currently x graduate students in our department and I rank this candidate at the top 1%. Their experimental/computational skills are the best I have ever had in my own laboratory.”. Do not forget to include with whom or what group you are comparing the individual. If you have not yet trained many individuals in your own laboratory, include those that you trained previously as a researcher as reference. Having concentrated on the candidate’s individual or unique strengths, you might find it difficult to provide a ranking. This is less of an issue if a candidate is unambiguously among the top 10% that you have mentored but not all who come to you for a letter will fall within that small group. If you wish to offer a comparative perspective, you might more readily be able to do so in more specific areas such as whether the candidate is one of the most articulate, original, clear-thinking, motivated, or intellectually curious.

Key do’s and don’ts when writing a letter of recommendation

The body of the recommendation letter should provide specific information about the candidate and address any questions or requirements posed in the selection criteria (see sections above). Some applications may ask for comments on a candidate’s scholarly performance. Refer the reader to the candidate’s CV and/or transcript if necessary but don’t report grades, unless to make an exceptional point (such as they were the only student to earn a top grade in your class). The body of the recommendation letter will contain the majority of the information including specific examples, relevant candidate qualities, and your experiences with the candidate, and therefore the majority of this manuscript focuses on what to include in this section.

The closing paragraph of the letter should briefly 1) summarize your opinions about the candidate, 2) clearly state your recommendation and strong support of the candidate for the opportunity that they are seeking, and 3) offer the recipient of the letter the option to contact you if they need any further information. Make sure to provide your email address and phone number in case the recipient has additional questions. The overall tone of the letter can represent your confidence in the applicant. If opportunity criteria are detailed and the candidate meets these criteria completely, include this information. Do not focus on what you may perceive as a candidate’s negative qualities as such tone may do more harm than intended ( Table 2 ). Finally, be aware of the Forer’s effect, a cognitive error, in which a very general description, that fits almost everyone, is used to describe a person [ 20 ]. Such generalizations can be harmful, as they provide the candidate the impression that they received a valuable, positive letter, but for the committee, who receive hundreds of similar letters, this is non-informative and unhelpful to the application.

Describe relevant candidate qualities with specific examples and without overhyping

In discussing a candidate’s qualities and character, proceed in ways similar to those used for intellectual evaluation ( Box 1 ). Information to specifically highlight may include personal characteristics, such as integrity, resilience, poise, confidence, dependability, patience, creativity, enthusiasm, teaching capabilities, problem-solving abilities, ability to manage trainees and to work with colleagues, curriculum development skills, collaboration skills, experience in grant writing, ability to organize events and demonstrate abilities in project management, and ability to troubleshoot (see section “ Use ethical principles, positive and inclusive language within the letter ” below for tips on using inclusive terminology). The candidate may also have a specific area of knowledge, strengths and experiences worth highlighting such as strong communication skills, expertise in a particular scientific subfield, an undergraduate degree with a double major, relevant work or research experience, coaching, and/or other extracurricular activities. Consider whether the candidate has taught others in the lab, or shown particular motivation and commitment in their work. When writing letters for mentees who are applying for (non-)academic jobs or admission to academic institutions, do not merely emphasize their strengths, achievements and potential, but also try to 1) convey a sense of what makes them a potential fit for that position or funding opportunity, and 2) fill in the gaps. Gaps may include an insufficient description of the candidate’s strengths or research given restrictions on document length. Importantly, to identify these gaps, one must have carefully reviewed both the opportunity posting as well as the application materials (see Box 1 , Table 2 ).

Recommendations for Letter Writers

• Consider characteristics that excite & motivate this candidate.
• Include qualities that you remember most about the candidate.
• Detail their unusual competence, talent, mentorship, teaching or leadership abilities.
• Explain the candidate’s disappointments or failures & the way they reacted & overcame.
• Discuss if they demonstrated a willingness to take intellectual risks beyond the normal research & classroom experience.
• Ensure that you have knowledge of the institution that the candidate is applying for.
• Consider what makes you believe this particular opportunity is a good match for this candidate.
• Consider how they might fit into the institution’s community & grow from their experience.
• Describe their personality & social skills.
• Discuss how the candidate interacts with teachers & peers.
• Use ethical principles, positive & inclusive language within the letter.
• Do not list facts & details, every paper, or discovery of the candidate’s career.
• Only mention unusual family or community circumstances after consulting the candidate.
• A thoughtful letter from a respective colleague with a sense of perspective can be quite valuable.
• Each letter takes time & effort, take it seriously.

When writing letters to nominate colleagues for promotion or awards, place stronger emphasis on their achievements and contributions to a field, or on their track record of teaching, mentorship and service, to aid the judging panel. In addition to describing the candidate as they are right now, you can discuss the development the person has undergone (for specific examples see Table 2 ).

A letter of recommendation can also explain weaknesses or ambiguities in the candidate’s record. If appropriate – and only after consulting the candidate - you may wish to mention a family illness, financial hardship, or other factors that may have resulted in a setback or specific portion of the candidate’s application perceived weakness (such as in the candidate’s transcript). For example, sometimes there are acceptable circumstances for a gap in a candidate’s publication record—perhaps a medical condition or a family situation kept them out of the lab for a period of time. Importantly, being upfront about why there is a perceived gap or blemish in the application package can strengthen the application. Put a positive spin on the perceived negatives using terms such as “has taken steps to address gaps in knowledge”, “has worked hard to,” and “made great progress in” (see Table 2 ).

Describe a candidate’s intellectual capabilities in terms that reflect their distinctive or individual strengths and be prepared to support your judgment with field-specific content [ 12 ] and concrete examples. These can significantly strengthen a letter and will demonstrate a strong relationship between you and the candidate. Describe what the candidate’s strengths are, moments they have overcome adversity, what is important to them. For example: “candidate x is exceptionally intelligent. They proved to be a very quick study, learning the elements of research design and technique y in record time. Furthermore, their questions are always thoughtful and penetrating.”. Mention the candidate’s diligence, work ethic, and curiosity and do not merely state that “the applicant is strong” without specific examples. Describing improvements to candidate skills over time can help highlight their work ethic, resolve, and achievements over time. However, do not belabor a potential lower starting point.

Provide specific examples for when leadership was demonstrated, but do not include leadership qualities if they have not been demonstrated. For example, describe the candidate’s qualities such as independence, critical thinking, creativity, resilience, ability to design and interpret experiments; ability to identify the next steps and generate interesting questions or ideas, and what you were especially impressed by. Do not generically list the applicant as independent with no support or if this statement would be untrue.

Do not qualify candidate qualities based on a stereotype for specific identities. Quantify the candidate’s abilities, especially with respect to other scientists who have achieved success in the field and who the letter reader might know. Many letter writers rank applicants according to their own measure of what makes a good researcher, graduate trainee, or technician according to a combination of research strengths, leadership skills, writing ability, oral communication, teaching ability, and collegiality. Describe what the role of the candidate was in their project and eventual publication and do not assume letter readers will identify this information on their own (see Table 2 ). Including a description about roles and responsibilities can help to quantify a candidate’s contribution to the listed work. For example, “The candidate is the first author of the paper, designed, and led the project.”. Even the best mentor can overlook important points, especially since mentors typically have multiple mentees under their supervision. Thus, it can help to ask the candidate what they consider their strengths or traits, and accomplishments of which they are proud.

If you lack sufficient information to answer certain questions about the candidate, it is best to maintain the integrity and credibility of your letter - as the recommending person, you are potentially writing to a colleague and/or someone who will be impacted by your letter; therefore, honesty is key above all. Avoid the misconception that the more superlatives you use, the stronger the letter. Heavy use of generic phrases or clichés is unhelpful. Your letter can only be effective if it contains substantive information about the specific candidate and their qualifications for the opportunity. A recommendation that paints an unrealistic picture of a candidate may be discounted. All information in a letter of recommendation should be, to the best of your knowledge, accurate. Therefore, present the person truthfully but positively. Write strongly and specifically about someone who is truly excellent (explicitly describe how and why they are special). Write a balanced letter without overhyping the candidate as it will not help them.

Be careful about what you leave out of the letter

Beware of what you leave out of the recommendation letter. For most opportunities, there are expectations of what should be included in a letter, and therefore what is not said can be just as important as what is said. Importantly, do not assume all the same information is necessary for every opportunity. In general, you should include the information stated above, covering how you know the candidate, their strengths, specific examples to support your statements, and how the candidate fits well for the opportunity. For example, if you don’t mention a candidate’s leadership skills or their ability to work well with others, the letter reader may wonder why, if the opportunity requires these skills. Always remember that opportunities are sought by many individuals, so evaluators may look for any reason to disregard an application, such as a letter not following instructions or discussing the appropriate material. Also promote the candidate by discussing all of their scholarly and non-scholarly efforts, including non-peer reviewed research outputs such as preprints, academic and non-academic service, and advocacy work which are among their broader impact and all indicative of valuable leadership qualities for both academic and non-academic environments ( Table 2 ).

Provide an even-handed judgment of scholarly impact, be fair and describe accomplishments fairly by writing a balanced letter about the candidate’s attributes that is thoughtful and personal (see Table 2 ). Submitting a generic, hastily written recommendation letter is not helpful and can backfire for both the candidate and the letter writer as you will often leave out important information for the specific opportunity; thus, allow for sufficient time and effort on each candidate/application.

Making the letter memorable by adding content that the reader will remember, such as an unusual anecdote, or use of a unique term to describe the candidate. This will help the application stand out from all the others. Tailor the letter to the candidate, including as much unique, relevant information as possible and avoid including personal information unless the candidate gives consent. Provide meaningful examples of achievements and provide stories or anecdotes that illustrate the candidate’s strengths. Say what the candidate specifically did to give you that impression ( Box 1 ). Don’t merely praise the candidate using generalities such as “candidate x is a quick learner”.

Use ethical principles, positive and inclusive language within the letter

Gender affects scientific careers. Avoid providing information that is irrelevant to the opportunity, such as ethnicity, age, hobbies, or marital status. Write about professional attributes that pertain to the application. However, there are qualities that might be important to the job or funding opportunity. For instance, personal information may illustrate the ability to persevere and overcome adversity - qualities that are helpful in academia and other career paths. It is critical to pay attention to biases and choices of words while writing the letter [ 13 , 14 ]. Advocacy bias (a letter writer is more likely to write a strong letter for someone similar to themselves) has been identified as an issue in academic environments [ 3 ]. Studies have also shown that there are often differences in the choice of words used in letters for male and female scientists [ 3 , 5 ]. For instance, letters for women have been found not to contain much specific and descriptive language. Descriptions often pay greater attention to the personal lives or personal characteristics of women than men, focusing on items that have little relevance in a letter of recommendation. When writing recommendation letters, employers have a tendency to focus on scholarly capabilities in male candidates and personality features in female candidates; for instance, female candidates tend to be depicted in letters as teachers and trainees, whereas male candidates are described as researchers and professionals [ 15 ]. Also, letters towards males often contain more standout words such as “superb”, “outstanding”, and “excellent”. Furthermore, letters for women had been found to contain more doubt-raising statements, including negative or unexplained comments [ 3 , 15 , 16 ]. This is discriminative towards women and gives a less clear picture of women as professionals. Keep the letter gender neutral. Do not write statements such as “candidate x is a kind woman” or “candidate y is a fantastic female scientist” as these have no bearing on whether someone will do well in graduate school or in a job. One way to reduce gender bias is by checking your reference letter with a gender bias calculator [ 17 , 18 ]. Test for gender biases by writing a letter of recommendation for any candidate, male or female, and then switch all the pronouns to the opposite gender. Read the letter over and ask yourself if it sounds odd. If it does, you should probably change the terms used [ 17 ]. Other biases also exist, and so while gender bias has been the most heavily investigated, bias based on other identities (race, nationality, ethnicity, among others) should also be examined and assessed in advance and during letter writing to ensure accurate and appropriate recommendations for all.

Revise and submit on time

The recommendation letter should be written using language that is straightforward and concise [ 19 ]. Avoid using jargon or language that is too general or effusive ( Table 1 ). Formats and styles of single and co-signed letters are also important considerations. In some applications, the format is determined by the application portal itself in which the recommender is asked to answer a series of questions. If these questions do not cover everything you would like to address you could inquire if there is the option to provide a letter as well. Conversely, if the recommendation questionnaire asks for information that you cannot provide, it is best to explicitly mention this in writing. The care with which you write the letter will also influence the effectiveness of the letter - writing eloquently is another way of registering your support for the candidate. Letters longer than two pages can be counterproductive, and off-putting as reviewers normally have a large quantity of letters to read. In special cases, longer letters may be more favourable depending on the opportunity. On the other hand, anything shorter than a page may imply a lack of interest or knowledge, or a negative impression on the candidate. In letter format, write at least 3-4 paragraphs. It is important to note that letters from different sectors, such as academia versus industry tend to be of different lengths. Ensure that your letter is received by the requested method (mail or e-mail) and deadline, as a late submission could be detrimental for the candidate. Write and sign the letter on your department letterhead which is a further form of identification.

Conclusions

Recommendation letters can serve as important tools for assessing ECRs as potential candidates for a job, course, or funding opportunity. Candidates need to request letters in advance and provide relevant information for the recommender. Readers at selection committees need to examine the letter objectively with an eye for information on the quality of the candidate’s scholarly and non-scholarly endeavours and scientific traits. As a referee, it is important that you are positive, candid, yet helpful, as you work with the candidate in drafting a letter in their support. In writing a recommendation letter, summarize your thoughts on the candidate and emphasize your strong support for their candidacy. A successful letter communicates the writer’s enthusiasm for an individual, but does so realistically, sympathetically, and with concrete examples to support the writer’s associations. Writing recommendation letters can help mentors examine their interactions with their mentee and know them in different light. Express your willingness to help further by concluding the letter with an offer to be contacted should the reader need more information. Remember that a letter writer’s judgment and credibility are at stake thus do spend the time and effort to present yourself as a recommender in the best light and help ECRs in their career path.

Acknowledgements

S.J.H. was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant R35GM133732. A.P.S. was partially supported by the NARSAD Young Investigator Grant 27705.

Abbreviations:

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Mark Lynas et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 114005

While controls over the Earth's climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

Tanguang Gao et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 054023

Permafrost collapse can rapidly change regional soil-thermal and hydrological conditions, potentially stimulating production of climate-warming gases. Here, we report on rate and extent of permafrost collapse on the extensive Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Asian Water Tower and the Third Pole. Combined data from in situ measurements, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), manned aerial photographs, and satellite images suggest that permafrost collapse was accelerating across the Eastern Tibetan Plateau. From 1969 to 2017, the area of collapsed permafrost has increased by approximately a factor of 40, with 70% of the collapsed area forming since 2004. These widespread perturbations to the Tibetan Plateau permafrost could trigger changes in local ecosystem state and amplify large-scale permafrost climate feedbacks.

Seth Wynes and Kimberly A Nicholas 2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 074024

Current anthropogenic climate change is the result of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere, which records the aggregation of billions of individual decisions. Here we consider a broad range of individual lifestyle choices and calculate their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, based on 148 scenarios from 39 sources. We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO 2 -equivalent (tCO 2 e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO 2 e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO 2 e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO 2 e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less). Though adolescents poised to establish lifelong patterns are an important target group for promoting high-impact actions, we find that ten high school science textbooks from Canada largely fail to mention these actions (they account for 4% of their recommended actions), instead focusing on incremental changes with much smaller potential emissions reductions. Government resources on climate change from the EU, USA, Canada, and Australia also focus recommendations on lower-impact actions. We conclude that there are opportunities to improve existing educational and communication structures to promote the most effective emission-reduction strategies and close this mitigation gap.

John Cook et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024

We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.

Jan Klenner et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 054019

Global aviation emissions have been growing despite international efforts to limit climate change. Quantifying the status quo of domestic and international aviation emissions is necessary for establishing an understanding of current emissions and their mitigation. Yet, a majority of the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC)-ratifying parties have infrequently disclosed aviation emissions within the international framework, if at all. Here, we present a set of national aviation emission and fuel burn inventories for these 197 individual parties, as calculated by the high-resolution aviation transport emissions assessment model (AviTeam) model. In addition to CO 2 emissions, the AviTeam model calculates pollutant emissions, including NO x , SO x , unburnt hydrocarbons, black carbon, and organic carbon. Emission inventories are created in aggregated and gridded format and rely on Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast combined with schedule data. The cumulative global fuel burn is estimated at 291 Tg for the year 2019. This corresponds to CO 2 emissions of 920 Tg, with 306 Tg originating from domestic aviation. We present emissions from 151 countries that have yet to report their emissions for 2019, which sum to 417 TgCO 2 . The improved availability of national emissions data facilitated by this inventory could support mitigation efforts in developed and developing countries and shows that such tools could bolster sector reporting to the UNFCCC.

Diana Ivanova et al 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 093001

Background. Around two-thirds of global GHG emissions are directly and indirectly linked to household consumption, with a global average of about 6 tCO 2 eq/cap. The average per capita carbon footprint of North America and Europe amount to 13.4 and 7.5 tCO 2 eq/cap, respectively, while that of Africa and the Middle East—to 1.7 tCO 2 eq/cap on average. Changes in consumption patterns to low-carbon alternatives therefore present a great and urgently required potential for emission reductions. In this paper, we synthesize emission mitigation potentials across the consumption domains of food, housing, transport and other consumption. Methods. We systematically screened 6990 records in the Web of Science Core Collections and Scopus. Searches were restricted to (1) reviews of lifecycle assessment studies and (2) multiregional input-output studies of household consumption, published after 2011 in English. We selected against pre-determined eligibility criteria and quantitatively synthesized findings from 53 studies in a meta-review. We identified 771 original options, which we summarized and presented in 61 consumption options with a positive mitigation potential. We used a fixed-effects model to explore the role of contextual factors (geographical, technical and socio-demographic factors) for the outcome variable (mitigation potential per capita) within consumption options. Results and discussion. We establish consumption options with a high mitigation potential measured in tons of CO 2 eq/capita/yr. For transport, the options with the highest mitigation potential include living car-free, shifting to a battery electric vehicle, and reducing flying by a long return flight with a median reduction potential of more than 1.7 tCO 2 eq/cap. In the context of food, the highest carbon savings come from dietary changes, particularly an adoption of vegan diet with an average and median mitigation potential of 0.9 and 0.8 tCO 2 eq/cap, respectively. Shifting to renewable electricity and refurbishment and renovation are the options with the highest mitigation potential in the housing domain, with medians at 1.6 and 0.9 tCO 2 eq/cap, respectively. We find that the top ten consumption options together yield an average mitigation potential of 9.2 tCO 2 eq/cap, indicating substantial contributions towards achieving the 1.5 °C–2 °C target, particularly in high-income context.

Jay Fuhrman et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 064012

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is expected to play a critical role in reaching net zero CO 2 and especially net zero greenhouse gase (GHG) emissions. However, the extent to which the role of CDR in counterbalancing residual emissions can be reduced has not yet been fully quantified. Here, we use a state-of-the-art integrated assessment model to develop a 'Maximum Sectoral Effort' scenario which features global emissions policies alongside ambitious effort across sectors to reduce their gross GHG emissions and thereby the CDR required for offsets. We find that these efforts can reduce CDR by over 50% globally, increase both the relative and absolute role of the land sink in storing carbon, and more evenly distribute CDR contributions and associated side-effects across regions compared to CO 2 pricing alone. Furthermore, the lower cumulative CO 2 and nonCO 2 emissions leads to earlier and lower peak temperatures. Emphasizing reductions in gross, in addition to net emissions while disallowing the substitution of less durable CDR for offsets can therefore reduce both physical and transition risks associated with high CDR deployment and temperature overshoot.

John Cook et al 2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 048002

The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al ( Environ. Res. Lett . 8 024024 ) based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers ( N  = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus. Tol (2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 048001 ) comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.

Kerstin K Zander et al 2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13 084009

The world's population is increasingly urban, with more than half the global population already living in cities. The urban population is particularly affected by increasing temperatures because of the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Increasing temperatures cause heat stress in people, even when not directly exposed to heat, since outdoor meteorological conditions also affect conditions inside, particularly in non-air-conditioned environments. Heat stress harms people's health, can impair their well-being and productivity, and may cause substantial economic losses. In this study, we investigate how people in urban areas across the Philippines are affected by heat, using data from 1161 responses obtained through an online survey. We found that almost all respondents (91%) are already experiencing heat stress quite severely and that the level of heat stress is correlated with population density. Controlling, in a multiple log it model, for variables commonly associated with heat stress, such as age, health, physical exertion and climate, we found that those least likely to be severely affected by heat live in areas with fewer than ∼7000 people per km 2 . Air-conditioning use at home relieved heat stress mostly for people in low-density areas but not where population density was high. The results provide evidence for the social impacts of increasing heat in urban areas, complementing understanding of well-known physical impacts such as the UHI effect.

William F Lamb et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 073005

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical review, we synthesise the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualise our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissions growth, stability and decline across ten global regions. Overall, the literature and data emphasise that progress towards reducing GHG emissions has been limited. The prominent global pattern is a continuation of underlying drivers with few signs of emerging limits to demand, nor of a deep shift towards the delivery of low and zero carbon services across sectors. We observe a moderate decarbonisation of energy systems in Europe and North America, driven by fuel switching and the increasing penetration of renewables. By contrast, in rapidly industrialising regions, fossil-based energy systems have continuously expanded, only very recently slowing down in their growth. Strong demand for materials, floor area, energy services and travel have driven emissions growth in the industry, buildings and transport sectors, particularly in Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South-East Asia. An expansion of agriculture into carbon-dense tropical forest areas has driven recent increases in AFOLU emissions in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa. Identifying, understanding, and tackling the most persistent and climate-damaging trends across sectors is a fundamental concern for research and policy as humanity treads deeper into the Anthropocene.

Latest articles

Jan Pišl et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 064053

Kang Hu et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 064052

The microphysical attributes of black carbon (BC) can determine its absorption and hygroscopic properties. However, long-term information is difficult to obtain from the field. In this study, the BC properties including mass concentration, the coating volume ratio (VR) relative to the refractory BC (rBC), the rBC diameter and the fraction of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), are derived from a number of field experiments using a random forest model. This model effectively derives the long-term BC microphysical properties in the Beijing region from 2013 to 2020 using continuous measurements of particulate matter, gas, BC mass concentration and meteorological parameters. The results reveal notably higher BC coatings (mean VR = 7.2) and a greater fraction of CCN-like BC (51%) in the winter compared to other seasons. Following the implementation of national air pollution control measures in 2017, BC mass exhibited a substantial reduction of 60% (29%) in the winter (summer), and VR decreased by 45% (24%). Apart from the influence of meteorological variations, these can be attributed to the declined primary emissions and the gas precursors which are associated with secondary formation of BC coatings. The reduction of both BC mass loading and coatings leads to its solar absorption decreasing by 50%, and the fraction of CCN-like BC (likely in clouds) decreasing by 23%. Environmental regulation will therefore continue to reduce both direct and indirect radiative impacts of BC in this region.

Mehran Vatani et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 064051

A frequently emphasized strategy to reduce the burden of heat in cities across the world is the implementation of street trees. Here, we examine the effects of deciduous and coniferous tree deployment on meteorological variables and pedestrian thermal comfort through analysis of the new dynamic thermal comfort (dPET) index, using the latest version of the computational fluid dynamics model ENVI-met. We performed on site observational measurements of air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (Rh), wind speed (Ws), and mean radiant temperature (MRT) at five different locations on the hottest day of summer 2023, in a post-industrial urban landscape located in Tehran, Iran. Observations were used to evaluate ENVI-met simulation performance and served as a baseline against which sensitivity experiments—based on a minimum (35%) and maximum (75%) intervention scenario for deciduous and coniferous trees—were compared against. Our analysis indicates that 35% and 75% deployment reduced Ta by 1.2 °C and 4.2 °C, respectively, for deciduous tree species, compared to a 0.9 °C and 3.1 °C reduction for coniferous species, during the hottest day of summer 2023. The maximum deployment scenario decreased MRT by approximately 60 °C and 43 °C for deciduous and coniferous tree deployment, respectively. The maximum tree deployment scenario decreased dPET by nearly 16 °C and 14 °C for deciduous and coniferous trees, respectively, during the time of day that diurnal heating is maximized. Our findings highlight micrometeorological and personalized thermal comfort effects associated with variable tree species type and extent through examination of a pedestrian's ambulatory experience across diverse urban microclimates in a region of the world that is particularly understudied.

Anqi Liu et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 064050

In East Asia, the climate variability in boreal winter is dominated by the East Asian winter monsoon, one of the most energetic monsoon systems that can lead to disasters. The key variable, the East Asian winter surface air temperature (SAT), has significantly changed over the past century and has substantially impacted agriculture, ecosystems, economics, and public health. However, its projections are limited by considerable uncertainties. Here, we identify the first leading mode that explains almost 29.6% of the inter-model spread in future SAT change. Our research delves into the evolution of present-day biases under future scenarios and their consequential impact on the SAT. Models with stronger western currents' heat transport in the North Pacific exhibit a warmer North Pacific at mid-latitudes during historical periods. Additionally, these models consistently demonstrate stronger western currents in the future, contributing to the amplified warming of the western North Pacific, thereby warming Eurasia via the weakened trough and subtropical jet through barotropic responses to the warm North Pacific. Incorporating observational sea surface temperature constraints reduces uncertainties by 9.40%, revealing a more reliable SAT change pattern by the end of the 21st century.

Nan He et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 064049

The increasing contradiction between resource supply and demand has brought ecological security (ES) to the forefront. Research on the changes of ES pattern and their driving factors is crucial for coordinating the regional ecological and economic development. Hubei Province in China exhibits uneven distribution of resources and a fragile ecological environment. In this study, an improved ecological footprint (EF) model was employed to analyze the changes in the ES pattern of Hubei Province. And the logarithmic mean Divisia index model was introduced to analyze the corresponding driving factors. The results showed that (1) from 2000 to 2020, the EF per capita (ef), the ecological carrying capacity per capita (ecc), and the ecological deficit (ED) per capita (ed) of Hubei Province increased by 47.11%, 2.71%, and 51.72%, respectively. In 2020, the cities in the province were in a state of ED, and the spatial distribution was 'high in the central part of the province and low in the east and west'. (2) Each ef type showed an increasing trend. The increase in ef mostly came from the increase in fisheries ef, fossil energy ef and cropland ef, with a contribution of 76.70%. The increase in ecc is mainly due to the increase in freshwater ecc, with a contribution of 274.87%. (3) The ecological pressure in the province continued to rise and has been in a state of being completely unsafe. The efficiency of ecological resource use has increased, and the ecological structure tends to be rationalized, but the ecological-economic coordination has weakened. (4) The overall EF growth in the province is mostly driven by economic, population and footprint structure factors, while footprint intensity suppresses EF growth. Therefore, it is advised to boost investment in eco-friendly tech, foster green economy growth, and prioritize renewable energy development. This study can provide a reference basis for policy formulation on environmental sustainability and ecosystem management.

Review articles

Felix Creutzig et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 053004

Shared pooled mobility has been hailed as a sustainable mobility solution that uses digital innovation to efficiently bundle rides. Multiple disciplines have started investigating and analyzing shared pooled mobility systems. However, there is a lack of cross-community communication making it hard to build upon knowledge from other fields or know which open questions may be of interest to other fields. Here, we identify and review 9 perspectives: transdisciplinary social sciences, social physics, transport simulations, urban and energy economics, psychology, climate change solutions, and the Global South research and provide a common terminology. We identify more than 25 000 papers, with more than 100 fold variation in terms of literature count between research perspectives. Our review demonstrates the intellectual attractivity of this as a novel perceived mode of transportation, but also highlights that real world economics may limit its viability, if not supported with concordant incentives and regulation. We then sketch out cross-disciplinary open questions centered around (1) optimal configuration of ride-pooling systems, (2) empirical studies, and (3) market drivers and implications for the economics of ride-pooling. We call for researchers of different disciplines to actively exchange results and views to advance a transdisciplinary research agenda.

Chiara Castelli et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 053003

This study conducts a comprehensive review of macroeconomic models within the Water, Energy, Food, and Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus, considering four different approaches: computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, integrated assessment models (IAMs), agent-based models (ABMs), and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Specifically, we examine how macroeconomic models represent not only the WEFE nexus as a whole but also its individual components and their combinations. Spanning a collection of 77 papers published in the last 20 years, this review underscores the prevalence of CGE models and IAMs, followed by ABMs, as dominant avenues of research within this field. CGE models frequently investigate interconnections between pairs of WEFE elements, while IAMs focus on the whole nexus. At the same time, ABMs do not exhibit a clear pattern, whereas DSGE models predominantly concentrate on the energy component alone. Overall, our findings indicate that the development of DSGE models and ABMs is still in its early stages. DSGE models potentially allow the analysis of uncertainty and risk in this field, while ABMs might offer new insights into the complex interactions between natural and human systems but still lack a common framework.

Aswin Giri J and Shiva Nagendra S M 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 053002

Air pollution is perceived through sensory stimuli and interpreted by our brain. Perception is highly subjective and varies from person to person. As many direct and indirect factors influence air pollution perception, it is difficult to unearth the underlying mechanisms. Many studies have tried to understand the mechanisms and relations affecting perception, and it is important to evaluate those different approaches. We systematically reviewed 104 studies on air pollution perception, following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines. There is a difference between the public's subjective perception and objective air quality measurements. This discrepancy has been found to occur due to varied socio-economic characteristics, knowledge, emotions, etc. The advent of social media and the internet has had a significant effect on risk perception. All these influencing factors create differences between the public's perception and the scientific community/policymakers. This gap can be fixed by tailoring science-backed information for better communication. Based on past studies, we highlight the need for tailored data dissemination, integration of big data for urban management, development of robust frameworks to incorporate perception and use of a perception index for better communication.

Xinyuan Wei et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 053001

Inland waters receive large quantities of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soils and act as conduits for the lateral transport of this terrestrially derived carbon, ultimately storing, mineralizing, or delivering it to oceans. The lateral DOC flux plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle, and numerous models have been developed to estimate the DOC export from different landscapes. We reviewed 34 published models and compared their characteristics to identify challenges in model applications and opportunities for future model development. We classified these models into three types: indicator-driven, hydrology-forced, and process-based DOC export simulation models. They differ mainly in their environmental inputs, simulation approaches for soil DOC production, leaching from soils to inland waters, and transit through inland waters. It is essential to consider landscape characteristics, climate conditions, available data, and research questions when selecting the most appropriate model. Given the substantial assumptions associated with these models, sufficient measurements are required to benchmark estimates. Accurate accounting of terrestrially derived DOC export to oceans requires incorporating the DOC produced in aquatic ecosystems and deposited with rainwater; otherwise, global export estimates may be overestimated by 40.7%. Additionally, improving the representation of mineralization and burial processes in inland waters allows for more accurate accounting of carbon sequestration through land ecosystems. When all the inland water processes are ignored or assuming DOC leaching is equivalent to DOC export, the loss of soil carbon through this lateral flux could be underestimated by 43.9%.

Tamara L Sheldon and Rubal Dua 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 043004

Ride-hailing has expanded substantially around the globe over the last decade and is likely to be an integral part of future transportation systems. We perform a systematic review of the literature on energy and environmental impacts of ride-hailing. In general, empirical papers find that ride-hailing has increased congestion, vehicle miles traveled, and emissions. However, theoretical papers overwhelmingly point to the potential for energy and emissions reductions in a future with increased electrification and pooling. Future research addressing the gap between observed and predicted impacts is warranted.

Accepted manuscripts

Chen et al 

The adverse impacts of Australia's Millennium Drought on both surface and groundwater hydrological systems are extensively documented. During the Millennium Drought, the Murray Basin experienced a severe rainfall deficit. Our study revisited groundwater table trends in 451 wells within the Murray Basin during the drought from 1997 to 2009. These trends varied, 70% showed significant downward shifts, 19% were insignificant, and 11% even displayed upward trends. The results from K-means clustering analysis indicate a markedly slow recuperation of groundwater levels post-drought. We used multiple regression models to link interannual groundwater dynamics with climate variables, revealing climate as the primary driver of declining groundwater levels. This connection is influenced by land cover and thickness of the vadose zone, resulting in hysteresis effects and spatial variations. In cases with a thick vadose zone and minimal evapotranspiration, the influence of the Millennium Drought on the groundwater system is reduced. The increasing trends may also be related to lateral recharge from mountainous areas, human activities in adjacent irrigation districts, and east-west geostress. Our findings reveal the complex interactions between climate, land characteristics, and groundwater behavior during and after the Millennium Drought, holding significant implications for understanding hydrological processes under extreme drought conditions and for the sustainable management of water resources.

Zhao et al 

The ΔCO/ΔCO2 ratio is a good indicator of the combustion efficiency of carbon-containing fuels, and can be useful to assess the combustion efficiency on a regional scale. In this study, we analyzed in-situ observations of CO2 and CO concentrations from 2011 to 2021 at the Station for Observing Regional Processes of the Earth System (SORPES), in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region of eastern China, and calculated the ΔCO/ΔCO2 ratio to investigate the combustion efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region. Furthermore, we used a Lagrangian particle dispersion model WRF-FLEXPART to evaluate the contribution of each emission sources to the observed ΔCO/ΔCO2 ratio. We found that the observed ΔCO/ΔCO2 ratio showed a persistent decreasing trend of 1.0 ppb/ppm per year and decreased ~47.9% during this period, illustrating an evident improvement in the combustion efficiency in the YRD region. The improvement of the combustion efficiency is a result of China's Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan announced in 2013. However, the decrease of ΔCO/ΔCO2 ratio slowed down from 1.3 ppb/ppm per year during 2011-2016 to 0.6 ppb/ppm per year during 2017-2021. The simulation results reveal that the slowdown of the decrease in the ΔCO/ΔCO2 ratios can be explained by the slowing improvement of combustion efficiency in steel source in the industry sector. Our results verify the effectiveness of emission reduction efforts in YRD region and highlight the necessity of long-term observations of CO2 and CO.

Kowalczyk et al 

To achieve the Paris climate target, deep emissions reductions have to be complemented with carbon dioxide removal (CDR). However, a portfolio of CDR options is necessary to reduce risks and potential negative side effects. Despite a large theoretical potential, ocean-based CDR such as ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) has been omitted in climate change mitigation scenarios so far. In this study, we provide a techno-economic assessment of large-scale OAE using hydrated lime ('ocean liming'). We address key uncertainties that determine the overall cost of ocean liming such as the CO2 uptake efficiency per unit of material, distribution strategies avoiding carbonate precipitation which would compromise efficiency, and technology availability (e.g., solar calciners). We find that at economic costs of 130 to 295 $/tCO2 net-removed, ocean liming could be a competitive CDR option which could make a significant contribution towards the Paris climate target. As the techno-economic assessment identified no showstoppers, we argue for more research on ecosystem impacts, governance, monitoring, reporting, and verification, and technology development and assessment to determine whether ocean liming and other OAE should be considered as part of a broader CDR portfolio.

This study focuses on changes in the Tibetan Plateau vortices (TPVs) by using ERA5 reanalysis, covering the summers from 1979 to 2022 within the Tibetan Plateau (TP) region. These TPVs were identified using a geopotential height analysis. We discovered that the central-western TP had the most TPV activity and observed a clear decreasing trend in both the intensity and frequency of the TPVs in this region. This decrease was also accompanied by a decline in the strength of the associated vertical upward motion. To better understand this change, we employed the quasi-geostrophic omega equation. This allowed us to examine the dynamic, diabatic, and topographic factors contributing to the vertical motion during different phases of TPV activity in this region. Our results indicate that the main reason behind the weakened TPVs is the diminishing upper-level jet stream, which exerts dynamic forcing on the system. In the later stage, we observed that intensive moisture transport induces heightened diabatic vertical motion. However, this effect is not potent enough to counterbalance the diminishing dynamic influence. Therefore, our findings suggest a significant shift in TPV activity, transitioning from a dynamic-dominated regime to a latent heating-dominated diabatic regime. This new insight enhances our understanding of the complex mechanisms that influence TPV behavior.

Poltronieri et al 

The Arctic sea ice (ASI) is expected to decrease with further global warming. However, considerable uncertainty remains regarding the temperature range that would lead to a completely ice-free Arctic. Here, we combine satellite data and a large suite of models from the latest phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to develop an empirical, observation-based projection of the September ASI area for increasing global mean surface temperature (GMST) values. This projection harnesses two simple linear relationships that are statistically supported by both observations and model data. First, we show that the September ASI area is linearly proportional to the area inside a specific northern hemisphere January-September mean temperature contour Tc. Second, we use observational data to show how zonally averaged temperatures have followed a positive linear trend relative to the GMST, consistent with Arctic amplification. To ensure the reliability of these observations throughout the rest of the century, we validate this trend by employing the CMIP6 ensemble Combining these two linear relationships, we show that the September ASI area decrease will accelerate with respect to the GMST increase. Our analysis of observations and CMIP6 model data suggests a complete loss of the September ASI (area below 10 6 km 2 ) for global warming between 1.5°C and 2.2°C above pre-industrial GMST levels.

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• 2006-present Environmental Research Letters doi: 10.1088/issn.1748-9326 Online ISSN: 1748-9326

Permission Letter To Conduct Research: How To Draft It Right!

In this article, I’ll share my insights and provide you with a step-by-step guide, including customizable templates , to craft your own effective permission letter for research.

Key Takeaways Understand the purpose and importance of a permission letter for research. Learn the essential components to include in your letter. Get a step-by-step guide to writing a compelling permission letter. Benefit from a customizable template to streamline your writing process. Discover practical tips from my personal experience to enhance your letter.

Understanding the Importance of a Permission Letter for Research

A permission letter for research is a crucial document that formally requests authorization to conduct a study in specific locations or collect data from a particular group.

It serves as a formal agreement between the researcher and the authority or individuals involved, ensuring that the research is conducted ethically and legally.

Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Permission Letter

Step 1: start with contact information and date.

Always begin your letter by stating your contact information at the top, followed by the date. This should include your name, address, phone number, and email address.

Step 2: Address the Recipient Properly

Address the recipient by their proper title and name. If you’re unsure, a general “To Whom It May Concern” can suffice, but personalized greetings are always more impactful.

Step 3: Introduce Yourself and Your Affiliation

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Introduce yourself, your position, and your affiliation. This sets the context and establishes your credibility.

Step 4: Clearly State the Purpose of Your Letter

Be clear and concise about your intent to seek permission for research. Mention the research topic and why the specific site or group is essential for your study.

Step 5: Provide Details of Your Research

Explain the scope of your research, the methodology you’ll use, and the expected duration. Transparency is key to gaining trust and approval.

Step 6: Assure Ethical Compliance

Highlight your commitment to ethical standards, including how you’ll ensure participant confidentiality and data protection.

Step 7: Request for Approval

Politely request permission to proceed with your research, expressing your willingness to comply with any required protocols or guidelines.

Step 8: Include Contact Information for Follow-up

Offer your contact information again, encouraging the recipient to reach out with any questions or requests for further details.

Step 9: Close with a Professional Salutation

End your letter with a professional closing, such as “Sincerely,” followed by your name and signature.

Template for a Permission Letter To Conduct Research

[Your Name] [Your Address] [City, State, Zip Code] [Phone Number] [Email Address] [Date]

[Recipient’s Name or Title] [Organization’s Name] [Address] [City, State, Zip Code]

Dear [Recipient’s Name or Title],

I am writing to request permission to conduct research at [location/site/group], as part of my [research project/study] on [topic]. My name is [Your Name], and I am a [Your Position] at [Your Institution or Organization].

The purpose of my research is to [briefly state the objective]. I believe that [location/site/group] is essential for my study because [reason]. The research will involve [describe the methodology], and I anticipate it will take approximately [duration] to complete.

I assure you that all research activities will adhere to the highest ethical standards. Participant confidentiality and data protection will be strictly maintained throughout the research process.

Your approval to conduct this research would be greatly appreciated. I am more than willing to adhere to any specific protocols or requirements you may have. Please feel free to contact me at [Your Phone Number] or [Your Email Address] if you have any questions or need further information.

Thank you for considering my request. I look forward to your positive response.

[Your Name] [Your Signature, if sending a hard copy]

Personal Tips from My Experience

• Personalize Your Letter:  Tailoring the letter to the recipient shows respect and attention to detail.
• Be Concise but Thorough:  Provide enough detail to inform but not so much that it overwhelms the reader.
• Follow-Up:  Don’t hesitate to follow up if you haven’t received a response within a reasonable time frame.
• Show Appreciation:  Always express gratitude for the recipient’s time and consideration.

I hope this guide helps you craft an effective permission letter for your research. I’d love to hear about your experiences or any additional tips you might have. Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

Related Posts

• Free Templates for Research Permission Letters
• 3 Must-Have Templates for Requesting Permission Easily
• Sample Letter To Request To Attend A Conference: Free & Effective

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: What is a permission letter to conduct research?

Answer : A permission letter to conduct research is a formal request to obtain permission from an organization or individual to conduct research on a particular topic. This type of letter is commonly used by students, researchers, and scholars who require permission to carry out their research.

Q: Why is a permission letter to conduct research important?

Answer : A permission letter to conduct research is important because it shows that the researcher has obtained the necessary permissions to conduct their research. It also provides a clear understanding of the scope and nature of the research and how it will be conducted, which can help to prevent misunderstandings or legal issues.

Q: Who should I address my permission letter to?

Answer : You should address your permission letter to the individual or organization that has the authority to grant permission for your research. This could be the head of the organization, a department manager, or an individual who is responsible for the area that you wish to conduct research in.

Q: What should I include in my permission letter to conduct research?

Answer : Your permission letter to conduct research should include an introduction that outlines your research topic and objectives, an explanation of why you need permission, an overview of your research methodology, details on the timeline and logistics of your research, and a formal closing that thanks the recipient for their time and consideration.

Q: How do I ensure that my permission letter to conduct research is effective?

Answer : To ensure that your permission letter to conduct research is effective, make sure that it is clear, concise, and polite. Provide detailed information about your research and the nature of your request, and address any potential concerns or objections that the recipient may have. Finally, proofread your letter carefully to ensure that it is free from errors and typos.

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How to Write a Good Cover Letter for a Research Position

Writing a cover letter can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be!

Some people believe cover letters are a science. Others seem to think they are more akin to black magic. Regardless of how you feel about cover letters, they are one of the most important parts of the job application process. Your resume or CV may get you an interview, but a good cover letter is what ensures that the hiring manager reads your resume in the first place.

Writing a cover letter for any job is important, but the art of writing a good cover letter for a research position can make or break your application. While writing a cover letter for a research position, you have to walk a fine line of proving your expertise and passion while limiting jargon and dense language.

In this post, we will explain cover letter writing basics, and then dive into how to write a research specific cover letter with examples of both good and bad practices.

What Is A Cover Letter and Why Do Cover Letters Matter?

A cover letter is your opportunity to tell a story and connect the dots of your resume. Resumes and curriculum vitae (CVs) are often cold and static—they don’t show any sort of character that will give companies a hint about if you will fit in with their culture. 

Your cover letter gives you the chance to demonstrate that you are an interesting, qualified, and intelligent person. Without proving that you are worth the time to interview, a company or research organization will set your application in the rejection pile without giving it a second look. 

So, what is a cover letter, exactly? It is an explanation (written out in paragraph form) of what you can bring to the company that goes beyond the information in your resume. Cover letters give a company a glimpse into the qualities that will make you the ideal candidate for their opening. 

Note that a cover letter is not the same as a letter of intent. A cover letter is written for a specific job opening. For example, if I got an email saying that the University of Colorado was looking for a tenure track faculty member to teach GEO 1001, and I chose to apply, I would write a cover letter. 

A letter of intent, however, is written regardless of the job opening. It is intended to express an interest in working at a particular company or with a particular group. The goal of a letter of intent is to demonstrate your interest in the company (or whatever type of group you are appealing to) and illustrate that you are willing to work with them in whatever capacity they feel is best. 

For example, if I loved the clothing company, Patagonia and wanted to work there, I could write a letter of intent. They may have an opening for a sales floor associate, but after reading my application and letter of intent, decide I would be better suited to a design position. Or, they may not have any positions open at all, but choose to keep my resume on hand for the next time they do. 

Most organizations want a cover letter, not a letter of intent, so it is important to make sure your cover letter caters to the specifics of the job posting. A cover letter should also demonstrate why you want to work at the company, but it should be primarily focused on why you can do the job better than any of the other applicants.

How to Write a Good Cover Letter: The Basics 

Writing a cover letter isn’t hard. Writing a good cover letter, a cover letter that will encourage a hiring manager to look at your application and schedule an interview, is more difficult (but certainly not impossible). Below, we will go over each of the important parts of a cover letter: the salutation, introduction, body, and conclusion, as well as some other best practices.

How to Write a Good Cover Letter Salutation

Don’t start with “Dear Sir/Ma’am” (or any iteration of a vague greeting, including “to whom it may concern”). Avoiding vague greetings is the oldest trick in the book, but it still holds a lot of weight. Starting a cover letter with the above phrase is pretty much stamping “I didn’t bother to research this company at all because I am sending out a million generic cover letters” across your application. It doesn’t look good. 

The best practice is to do your research and use your connections to find a name. “Dear Joe McGlinchy” means a lot more than “Dear Hiring Manager.” LinkedIn is a great tool for this—you can look up the company, then look through the employees until you find someone that seems like they hire for the relevant department. 

The most important thing about the salutation is to address a real human. By selecting someone in the company, you’ve demonstrated that you’ve done some research and are actually interested in this company specifically. Generic greetings aren’t eye-catching and don’t do well.

How to Write a Good Cover Letter Introduction

Once you’ve addressed your cover letter to a real human being, you need a powerful introduction to prove that this cover letter is worth the time it will take to read. This means that you need a hook. 

Your first sentence needs to be a strong starter, something to encourage the hiring manager not only to continue reading the cover letter, but to look at your application as well. If you have a contact in the company, you should mention them in the first sentence. Something along the lines of “my friend, Amanda Rice (UX/UI manager), suggested I apply for the natural language processing expert position after we worked together on a highly successful independent project.” 

The example above uses a few techniques. The name drop is good, but that only works if you actually have a connection in the company. Beyond that, this example has two strengths. First, it states the name of the position. This is important because hiring managers can be hiring for several different positions at a time, and by immediately clarifying which position you are applying for, you make their job a little bit easier.  Next, this sentence introduces concrete skills that apply to the job. That is a good way to start because it begins leading into the body, where you will go into depth about how exactly your experience and skills make you perfect for the job. 

Another technique for a strong lead-in to a cover letter is to begin with an applicable personal experience or anecdote. This attracts more attention than stereotypical intros (like the example above), but you have to be careful to get to the point quickly. Give yourself one or two sentences to tell the story and prove your point before you dive into your skills and the main body of the cover letter.

A more standard technique for introductions is simply expressing excitement. No matter how you choose to start, you want to demonstrate that you are eager about the position, and there is no easier way to do that than just saying it. This could take the form of “When I saw the description for X job on LinkedIn, I was thrilled: it is the perfect job for my Y skills and Z experience.” This option is simple and to-the-point, which can be refreshing for time-crunched hiring managers. 

Since we’ve provided a few good examples, we will offer a bad example, so you can compare and contrast. Don’t write anything along the line of: “My name is John Doe, and I am writing to express my interest in the open position at your company.” 

There are a few issues here. First, they can probably figure out your name. You don’t need that to be in the first sentence (or any of the sentences—the closing is an obvious enough spot). Next, “the open position” and “your company” are too generic. That sounds like the same cover letter you sent to every single employer in a hundred mile radius. Give the specifics! Finally, try to start with a little more spice. Add in some personality, something to keep the hiring manager reading. If you bore them to death in the first line, they aren’t going to look over your resume and application with the attention they deserve. 

How to Write a Good Cover Letter Body

So, you’ve addressed a real human being, and you’ve snagged their attention with a killer opening line. What next? Well, you have to hold on to that attention by writing an engaging and informative cover letter body. 

The body of a cover letter is the core of the important information you want to transmit. The introduction’s job was to snag the attention of the hiring manager. The body’s job is to sell them on your skills.  There are a few formatting things to be aware of before we start talking about what content belongs in the body of the cover letter. First, keep the company culture and standards in mind when picking a format. For example, if I want to work for a tech startup that is known for its wit and company culture, I can probably get away with using a bulleted list or another informal format. However, if I am applying to a respected research institution, using a standard five paragraph format is best. 

In addition, the cover letter should not be longer than a page. Hiring managers are busy people. They may have hundreds of resumes to read, so they don’t need a three page essay per person. A full page is plenty, and many hiring managers report finding three hundred words or less to be the idea length. Just to put that into context, the text from here to the “How to Write a Good Cover Letter Body” header below is about perfect, length-wise. 

Now, on to the more important part: the content. A cover letter should work in tandem with a resume. If you have a list of job experiences on your resume, don’t list them again in the cover letter. Use the valuable space in the cover letter to give examples about how you have applied your skills and experience. 

For example, if I have worked as a barista, I wouldn’t just say “I have worked as a barista at Generic Cafe.” The hiring manager could learn that from my resume. Instead, I could say “Working as a barista at Generic Cafe taught me to operate under pressure without feeling flustered. Once…” I would go on to recount a short story that illustrated my ability to work well under pressure. It is important that the stories and details you choose to include are directly related to the specific job. Don’t ramble or add anything that isn’t obviously connected. Use the job description as a tool—if it mentions a certain skill a few times, make sure to include it!

If you can match the voice and tone of your cover letter to the voice of the company, that usually earns you extra points. If, in their communications, they use wit, feel free to include it in your letter as well. If they are dry, to the point, and serious, cracking jokes is not the best technique.

A Few Don’ts of Writing a Cover Letter Body   

There are a few simple “don’ts” in cover letter writing. Do not: 

• Bad: I am smart, dedicated, determined, and funny.
• Better: When I was working at Tech Company, I designed and created an entirely new workflow that cut the product delivery time in half. 
• Bad: When I was seven, I really loved the monkeys at the zoo. This demonstrates my fun-loving nature. 
• Better: While working for This Company, I realized I was far more productive if I was light-hearted. I became known as the person to turn to in my unit when my coworkers needed a boost, and as my team adopted my ideology, we exceeded our sales goals by 200%. 
• Bad: I would love this job because it would propel me to the next stage of my career.
• Better: With my decade of industry experience communicating with engineers and clients, I am the right person to manage X team. 
• Bad: I know I’m not the most qualified candidate for this job, but…
• Better: I can apply my years of experience as an X to this position, using my skills in Y and Z to… 
• Bad: I am a thirty year old white woman from Denver…
• Better: I have extensive experience managing diverse international teams, as illustrated by the time I…  

The most important part of the cover letter is the body. Sell your skills by telling stories, but walk the razor’s edge between saying too much and not enough. When in doubt, lean towards not enough—it is better for the hiring manager to call you in for an interview to learn more than to bore them.

How to Write a Good Cover Letter Conclusion

 The last lines of a cover letter are extremely important. Until you can meet in-person for an interview, the conclusion of your cover letter will greatly affect the impression the hiring manager has of you. A good technique for concluding your cover letter is to summarize, in a sentence, what value you can bring to the company and why you are perfect for the position. Sum up the most important points from your cover letter in a short, concise manner. 

Write with confidence, but not arrogance. This can be a delicate balance. While some people have gotten away (and sometimes gotten a job) with remarks like, “I’ll be expecting the job offer soon,” most do not. Closing with a courteous statement that showcases your capability and skills is far more effective than arrogance. Try to avoid trite or generic statements in the closing sentence as well. This includes the template, “I am very excited to work for XYZ Company.” Give the hiring manager something to remember and close with what you can offer the company. 

The final step in any cover letter is to edit. Re-read your cover letter. Then, set it aside for a few hours (or days, time permitting) and read it again. Give it to a friend to read. Read it aloud. This may seem excessive, but there is nothing more off-putting than a spelling or grammar error in the first few lines of a cover letter. The hiring manager may power through and ignore it, but it will certainly taint their impression. 

Once the cover letter is as flawless and compelling as it can be, send it out! If you are super stuck on how to get started, working within a template may help. Microsoft Word has many free templates that are aesthetically appealing and can give you a hint to the length and content. A few good online options live here (free options are at the bottom—there is no reason to pay for a resume template).

How to Write a Cover Letter for a Research Position

Writing a cover letter for a research position is the same as writing any other cover letter. There are, however, a few considerations and additions that are worth pointing out. A job description may not directly ask for a cover letter, but it is good practice to send one unless they specifically say not to. This means that even if a cover letter isn’t mentioned, you should send one—it is best practice and gives you an opportunity to expand on your skills and research in a valuable way.

Format and Writing Style for a Research Position Cover Letter

Research and academics tend to appreciate formality more than start-ups or tech companies, so using the traditional five paragraph format is typically a good idea. The five paragraph format usually includes an introduction, three short examples of skills, and a concluding paragraph. This isn’t set in stone—if you’d rather write two paragraphs about the skills and experience you bring to the company, that is fine. 

Keep in mind that concise and to-the-point writing is extremely valuable in research. Anyone who has ever written a project proposal under 300 words knows that every term needs to add value. Proving that you are a skilled writer, starting in your cover letter, will earn you a lot of points. This means that cover letters in research and academia, though you may have more to say, should actually be shorter than others. Think of the hiring manager—they are plowing through a massive stack of verbose, technical, and complex cover letters and CVs. It is refreshing to find an easy to read, short cover letter. 

On the “easy to read” point, remember that the hiring manager may not be an expert in your field. Even if they are, you cannot assume that they have the exact same linguistic and educational background as you. For example, if you have dedicated the last five years of your life to studying a certain species of bacteria that lives on Red-Eyed Tree Frogs, all of those technical terms you have learned (and maybe even coined) have no place in your cover letter. Keep jargon to an absolute minimum. Consider using a tool like the Hemingway Editor to identify and eliminate jargon. While you want to reduce jargon, it is still important to prove that you’ve researched their research. Passion about the research topic is one of the most valuable attributes that a new hire can offer. 

Use your cover letter to prove that you have done your homework, know exactly what the institution or group is doing, and want to join them. If you have questions about the research or want to learn more, it isn’t a bad idea to get in touch with one of the researchers. You can often use LinkedIn or the group’s staff site to learn who is working on the project and reach out.

What Research Information Should be Included in a Cover Letter

A research position cover letter is not the place for your academic history, dissertation, or publications. While it may be tempting to go into detail about the amazing research you did for your thesis, that belongs in your CV. Details like this will make your cover letter too long. While these are valuable accomplishments, don’t include them unless there is something  that pertains to the group’s research, and your CV doesn’t cover it in depth. 

If you do choose to write about your research, write about concrete details and skills that aren’t in your CV. For example, if you have spent the last few years working on identifying the effects of a certain gene sequence in bird migration, include information about the lab techniques you used. Also, try to put emphasis on the aspects of your resume and CV that make you stand out from other candidates. It is likely that you will be competing with many similarly qualified candidates, so if you have a unique skill or experience, make sure it doesn’t get lost in the chaos—a cover letter is the perfect place to highlight these sorts of skills. 

Industry experience is a great differentiator. If you have relevant industry experience, make sure to include it in your cover letter because it will almost certainly set you apart. Another valuable differentiator is a deep and established research network. If you have been working on research teams for years and have deep connections with other scientists, don’t be afraid to include this information. This makes you a very valuable acquisition for the company because you come with an extensive network

Include Soft Skills in Your Cover Letter

Scientific skills aren’t the only consideration for hiring managers. Experience working with and leading teams is incredibly valuable in the research industry. Even if the job description doesn’t mention teamwork, add a story or description of a time you worked with (or, even better, lead) a successful team. Soft skills like management, customer service, writing, and clear communication are important in research positions. Highlight these abilities and experiences in your cover letter in addition to the hard skills and research-based information. 

If you are struggling to edit and polish your letter, give it to both someone within your field and someone who is completely unfamiliar with your research (or, at least, the technical side of it). Once both of those people say that the letter makes sense and is compelling, you should feel confident submitting it.

Cover letters are intended to give hiring managers information beyond what your resume and CV are able to display. Write with a natural but appropriately formal voice, do your research on the position, and cater to the job description. A good cover letter can go a long way to getting you an interview, and with these tips, your cover letters will certainly stand out of the pile.

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Letters to the Editor: There’s no excuse for using medical research done by Nazi doctors

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To the editor: UCLA medical professor Dr. Kalyanam Shivkumar’s work to replace the widely used anatomical atlas by Nazi physician Eduard Pernkopf is commendable, and others in the medical field should aggressively follow his lead. There must be numerous examples of ethically bankrupt medical research resulting in seemingly indispensable contemporary reference documents.

As a high school science teacher, I had an ethics lesson that asked students to examine the moral conundrum of the contemporary use of hypothermia research done by Nazi scientists on non-consenting Allied airmen, in violation of medical ethics and the Geneva Conventions. My objective was to get them thinking about questions of whether good could come from evil.

In this case, I could let my students off the hook because the so-called researchers were sadists and their scientific rigor was poor, rendering their results unscientific.

Today we have tremendously sophisticated diagnostic and computational tools to examine the human body, and abundant ways to obtain new and better medical knowledge. Ethically compromised resources should be ferreted out and replaced, wherever they occur.

David Seidel, Beverly Hills

To the editor: My father, a Jewish general surgeon, was totally enamored of his Pernkopf anatomy texts, which he felt were far better than those by Dr. Frank Netter or even Gray’s Anatomy. When I became a surgeon, he gave them to me.

I have known about their origins for 10 years and have struggled over whether or not to burn them. I decided to keep them not only to honor my father, but also to “never forget.”

Judith Braslow Zacher, M.D. Palm Desert

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Impact of U.S. Labor Productivity Losses from Extreme Heat

Stephie Fried

Gregory Casey

Matthew Gibson

FRBSF Economic Letter 2024-14 | May 28, 2024

Extreme heat decreases labor productivity in sectors like construction, where much work occurs outdoors. Because construction is an important component of investment, lost productivity today will slow how much capital is built up for future use and thus can have long-lasting impacts on overall economic outcomes. Combining estimates of lost labor productivity due to extreme heat with a model of economic growth suggests that, by the year 2200, extreme heat will reduce the U.S. capital stock by 5.4% and annual consumption by 1.8%.

Extreme heat makes it more difficult to perform physical labor. In the United States, this is particularly relevant for agriculture, mining, and construction, where a substantial share of production takes place outdoors. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that, of these three sectors, construction contributes the most to economic output, which suggests that the impact from lost labor activity due to extreme heat will largely be driven by the effects on the construction sector.

The labor productivity losses in construction today could have long-lasting effects on the U.S. economy because construction is important for investment. Investment is the purchase of capital in the form of goods or services. Thus, if extreme heat lowers investment today, then it will slow the accumulation of capital for future use and have long-lasting impacts on economic outcomes.

In this Economic Letter based on Casey, Fried, and Gibson (2024), we combine economic theory with findings from the climate science literature to project the future economic impacts of U.S. labor productivity losses from extreme heat. We find that future increases in days of extreme heat can be expected to reduce the amount of accumulated capital by approximately 5.4% in 2200 and reduce annual consumption by approximately 1.8%.

Extreme heat and worker productivity

When a person works on a physically intensive task, the body must release heat to maintain a safe internal temperature. If it is not possible to release enough heat, the person can suffer from heat stress. Scientists use wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), which incorporates the ambient air temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar irradiance, to determine when people are at risk of heat stress. Rising temperatures increase the risk of heat stress for workers in settings without climate control, such as those who work outdoors.

Worker safety organizations, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as the U.S. military provide guidelines for how much effort individuals can safely exert under different climate conditions. Dunne, Stouffer, and Johns (2013) analyze these guidelines and find that they are consistent across organizations. For “heavy work” that is characteristic of construction and agriculture, the guidelines suggest that heat stress becomes a concern at a WBGT of 25 degrees Celsius (°C), equivalent to 77 degrees Fahrenheit (°F), and that it is not safe to do any work outdoors when WBGT is above 33°C (91°F).

Figure 1 projects the future vulnerability to heat stress for an outdoor worker in the United States, measured in days above certain WBGT thresholds. To construct the figure, we use projections of future weather conditions at the county-level from Rasmussen, Meinshausen, and Kopp (2016). The projections are based on a scenario that assumes no large-scale efforts to limit carbon emissions. To aggregate these projections to the national level, we take a weighted average across counties, where the weights are fixed over time and determined by the current level of outdoor employment in each county.

Figure 1 Projected number of days above WBGT thresholds

The results suggest that future changes in climate will increase exposure to extreme heat for outdoor workers in the United States. The number of days above 25°C for these workers rises substantially between 2020 and 2100, from 22 days to 80 days per year. The number of days above 33°C increases from near zero to almost seven.

Why construction?

To understand how labor productivity losses from extreme heat could affect the economy, Figure 2 divides U.S. economic output from 1950 to 2019 into five sectors: services, manufacturing, construction, mining, and agriculture.

Figure 2 Composition of U.S. economic output

Services (light blue line) and manufacturing (yellow line) play the largest role in the U.S. economy, but they are unlikely to be highly affected by heat. This is because work in these sectors is largely performed indoors and U.S. businesses generally have access to air conditioning (Nath 2022). On the other hand, agriculture, construction, and mining are more likely to entail outdoor work. Among these outdoor sectors, construction makes up the largest share of overall U.S. output. The construction share (dark blue line) has been relatively constant over time, equal to approximately 4%. In contrast, the share of agriculture (green line) has fallen over time and equaled less than 0.2% of output in 2019. The share of the mining sector (red line) has been consistently less than 1%. Projecting these trends into the future, we expect that construction is likely to determine the overall vulnerability of U.S. production to extreme heat.

These results do not imply that the impact of extreme heat on U.S. agriculture and mining is unimportant. Extreme heat’s impact on U.S. agricultural productivity could affect food prices around the world, which could have a disproportionate effect on low-income individuals in the United States and in developing countries. Moreover, these impacts could have negative consequences for U.S. workers in agriculture and their local communities. Relative to the larger share of construction, however, agriculture and mining are not as likely to drive national outcomes.

Consumption versus investment

Economic output can be used for consumption or for investment. Consumption refers to households’ purchases of goods and services, such as food or haircuts, that increase well-being today. Investment refers to purchases of goods and services that are used to produce output in the future, and thus increase well-being in the future. This includes spending by businesses on things like factories and software, as well as the purchase of homes by households. The distinction between consumption and investment matters because a decrease in consumption reduces well-being today but has no impact on future economic outcomes. In contrast, a decrease in investment has no impact on well-being today, but it reduces the accumulation of capital, making it harder to produce both consumption and investment goods and services in the future.

Figure 3 shows the contribution of the five sectors from Figure 2 to consumption and investment. The construction sector is an important component of U.S. investment, accounting for over 20% of investment value-added. Thus, a decrease in construction productivity from extreme heat would reduce investment and thereby have a long-lasting impact on the economy.

Figure 3 Composition of U.S. consumption and investment

The future consequences of increases in extreme heat

To determine the impact of labor productivity losses from extreme heat, we build and simulate an economic model designed to study the impact of sectoral productivity on macroeconomic outcomes. Dunne et al. (2013) provide estimates of how WBGT affects labor productivity in outdoor work. We combine these estimates with the future paths of WBGT shown in Figure 1 to project future changes in productivity in the outdoor sectors. We then feed these reductions in outdoor productivity into our model.

Figure 4 shows the impact of extreme heat on the capital stock in our model. The capital stock is the value of accumulated investment, an important determinant of an economy’s ability to produce output. We compare the size of the capital stock under the scenario depicted in Figure 1 to the size of the capital stock when there is no change in extreme heat exposure after 2019. We find that future increases in extreme heat would lower the capital stock by about 1.4% in 2100 and by 5.4% in 2200. The lower capital stock reduces the economy’s ability to produce output, which in turn reduces consumption. Thus, we find that extreme heat reduces annual consumption by 0.5% in 2100 and 1.8% in 2200.

Figure 4 Impact of extreme heat on capital accumulation

The WBGT paths in Figure 1 and our results in Figure 4 correspond to the most likely climate outcome given a particular path of carbon emissions. However, there is considerable uncertainty over these climate outcomes. As a result, some economists argue that it is important to consider the consequences of other less likely but still possible outcomes (Weitzman 2009). To do so, we simulated the economic effects of an alternative outcome with only a 5% likelihood that retains our given path of carbon emissions but has a larger increase in number of extreme heat days. For example, in that outcome, the number of days with WBGT greater than 25°C increases from 22 in 2020 to 125 in 2100, as opposed to from 22 to 80 as assumed in our main analysis. The outcome would lead to considerably larger consequences from extreme heat, reducing capital accumulation by 18% in 2200 and consumption by 7%.

Some caveats are in order when interpreting the magnitudes from our analysis. We abstract from some ways that companies could adapt to extreme heat, such as relocating production to cooler parts of the United States or shifting work hours to cooler parts of the day. Additionally, while our focus is on the overall consequences of extreme heat on U.S. labor productivity, the effects could vary across income groups and regions of the country. One could also consider the effects of extreme heat in other countries. For example, the impacts are likely to be larger in developing countries, where agriculture is a bigger fraction of output and where work in manufacturing and services is less likely to take place in climate-controlled environments. Finally, the increases in extreme heat days that we study could be paired with decreases in extreme cold days, which could in turn have different implications for labor productivity.

This Letter studies the impact of extreme heat on long-run economic outcomes in the United States. Extreme heat is most likely to affect economic outcomes through the construction sector for two reasons. First, construction makes up a larger share of economic output than other vulnerable sectors, like agriculture. Second, decreases in construction productivity slow capital accumulation and therefore have long-lasting effects on macroeconomic outcomes. Our findings suggest that, under a scenario with no large-scale efforts to reduce carbon emissions, future increases in extreme heat would reduce the capital stock by 5.4% and annual consumption by 1.8% by the year 2200.

Casey, Gregory, Stephie Fried, and Matthew Gibson. 2022. “ Understanding Climate Damages: Consumption versus Investment .” FRB San Francisco Working Paper 2022-21.

Dunne, John P., Ronald J. Stouffer, and Jasmin G. John. 2013. “Reductions in Labour Capacity from Heat Stress under Climate Warming.” Nature Climate Change 3(6), pp. 563–566.

Nath, Ishan B. 2022. “ Climate Change, the Food Problem, and the Challenge of Adaptation through Sectoral Reallocation .” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 27297.

Rasmussen, D.J., Malte Meinshausen, and Robert E. Kopp. 2016. “ Probability-Weighted Ensembles of U.S. County-Level Climate Projections for Climate Risk Analysis .” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatolo gy 55(10), pp. 2,301–2,322.

Weitzman, Martin L. 2009. “On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change.” Review of Economics and Statistics 91(1), pp. 1–19.

Opinions expressed in FRBSF Economic Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of the management of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. This publication is edited by Anita Todd and Karen Barnes. Permission to reprint portions of articles or whole articles must be obtained in writing. Please send editorial comments and requests for reprint permission to [email protected]