We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled "Ca2+-binding protein frequenin mediates GDNF-induced potentiation of Ca2+ channels and transmitter release", which we wish to be considered for publication in Neuron.

We believe that two aspects of this manuscript will make it interesting to general readers of Neuron

Due to a direct competition and conflict of interest, we request that Drs. XXX of Harvard Univ., and YY of Yale Univ. not be considered as reviewers. With thanks for your consideration

Thank you very much your considering our manuscript for potential publication. I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon

Thank you very much for your attention and consideration

1. The work described has not been submitted elsewhere for publication, in whole or in

part, and all the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed.

2. 2. I have read and have abided by the statement of ethical standards for manuscripts

submitted to Neuroscience.

We dispatched our revision manuscript to you on 3 May 2007, but have not, as yet, receive acknowledgement of their safe arrival. We fear that may have been lost and should be grateful if you would let us know whether or not you have received them. If not, we will send our revisionmanuscript again. Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Case 1

Dear Editor,

We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled "GDNF Acutely Modulates Neuronal Excitability and A-type Potassium Channels in Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons", which we wish to be considered for publication in Nature Neuroscience.

GDNF has long been thought to be a potent neurotrophic factor for the survival of midbrain dopaminergic neurons, which are degenerated in Parkinson’s disease. In this paper, we report an unexpected, acute effect of GDNF on A-type potassium channels, leading to a potentiation of neuronal excitability, in the dopaminergic neurons in culture as well as in adult brain slices. Further, we show that GDNF regulates the K+ channels through a mechanism that involves activation of MAP kinase. Thus, this study has revealed, for the first time, an acute modulation of ion channels by GDNF. Our findings challenge the classic view of GDNF as a long-term survival factor for midbrain dopaminergic neurons, and suggest that the normal function of GDNF is to regulate neuronal excitability, and consequently dopamine release. These results may also have implications in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Due to a direct competition and conflict of interest, we request that Drs. XXX of Harvard Univ., and YY of Yale Univ. not be considered as reviewers. With thanks for your consideration, I am

Sincerely yours,

case2

Dear Editor,

We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled "Ca2+-binding protein frequenin mediates GDNF-induced potentiation of Ca2+ channels and transmitter release", which we wish to be considered for publication in Neuron.

We believe that two aspects of this manuscript will make it interesting to general readers of Neuron. First, we report that GDNF has a long-term regulatory effect on neurotransmitter release at the neuromuscular synapses. This provides the first physiological evidence for a role of this new family of neurotrophic factors in functional synaptic transmission. Second, we show that the GDNF effect is mediated by enhancing the expression of the Ca2+-binding protein frequenin. Further, GDNF and frequenin facilitate synaptic transmission by enhancing Ca2+ channel activity, leading to an enhancement of Ca2+ influx. Thus, this study has identified, for the first time, a molecular target that mediates the long-term, synaptic action of a neurotrophic factor. Our findings may also have general implications in the cell biology of neurotransmitter release.

[0630][投稿写作]某杂志给出的标准Sample Cover Letter[the example used is the IJEB]

Case 3

Sample Cover Letter[the example used is the IJEB]

Dear Editor of the [please type in journal title or acronym]:

Enclosed is a paper, entitled "Mobile Agents for Network Management." Please accept it as a candidate for publication in the [journal title]. Below are our responses to your submission requirements.

1. Title and the central theme of the article.

Paper title: "Mobile Agents for Network Management." This study reviews the concepts of mobile agents and distributed network management system. It proposes a mobile agent-based implementation framework and creates a prototype system to demonstrate the superior performance of a mobile agent-based network over the conventional

client-server architecture in a large network environment.

2. Which subject/theme of the Journal the material fits

New enabling technologies (if no matching subject/theme, enter 'Subject highly related to

[subject of journal] but not listed by [please type in journal title or acronym])

3. Why the material is important in its field and why the material should be published in

[please type in journal title or acronym]?

The necessity of having an effective computer network is rapidly growing alongside the implementation of information technology. Finding an appropriate network management system

has become increasingly important today's distributed environment. However, the conventional centralized architecture, which routinely requests the status information of local units by the central server, is not sufficient to manage the growing requests. Recently, a new framework that uses mobile

agent technology to assist the distributed management has emerged. The mobile agent reduces network traffic, distributes management tasks, and improves operational performance. Given today's bandwidth demand over the Internet, it is important for the

[journal title/acronym] readers

to understand this technology and its benefits. This study gives a real-life example of how to use mobile agents for distributed network management. It is the first in the literature that reports the analysis of network performance based on an operational prototype of mobile agent-based distributed

network. We strongly believe the contribution of this study warrants its publication in the

[journal title/acronym].

4. Names, addresses, and email addresses of four expert referees.

Prof. Dr. William Gates

Chair Professor of Information Technology

321 Johnson Hall

Premier University Lancaster, NY 00012-6666, USA

phone: +1-888-888-8888 - fax: +1-888-888-8886 e-mail: wgates@lancaster.edu

Expertise: published a related paper ("TCP/IP and OSI: Four Strategies for Interconnection") in CACM, 38(3), pp. 188-198.

Relationship: I met Dr. Gate only once at a conference in 1999. I didn't know him personally.

Assoc Prof. Dr. John Adams

Director of Network Research Center

College of Business Australian University

123, Harbor Drive Sydney,

Australia 56789

phone: +61-8-8888-8888 - fax: +61-8-8888-8886

e-mail: jadams@au.edu.au

Expertise: published a related paper ("Creating Mobile Agents") in IEEE TOSE, 18(8), pp. 88-98.

Relationship: None. I have never met Dr. Adams.

Assoc Prof. Dr. Chia-Ho Chen

Chair of MIS Department

College of Management

Open University

888, Putong Road

Keelung, Taiwan 100

phone: +886-2-8888-8888 - fax: +886-2-8888-8886

e-mail: chchen@ou.edu.tw

Expertise: published a related paper ("Network Management for E-Commerce") in IJ Electronic Business, 1(4), pp. 18-28.

Relationship: Former professor, dissertation chairman.

Mr. Frank Young

Partner, ABC Consulting

888, Seashore Highway

Won Kok, Kowloon

Hong Kong

phone: +852-8888-8888 - fax: +852-8888-8886

e-mail: fyoung@abcc.com

Expertise: Mr. Young provides consulting services extensively to his clients regarding network management practices.

Relationship: I have worked with Mr. Young in several consulting projects in the past three years.

Finally, this paper is our original unpublished work and it has not been submitted to any other journal for reviews.

Sincerely,

Dear Mrs Sparke,

We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled " Expression of Vitreoscilla

Hemoglobin Enhances Cell Growth and Dihydroxyacetone Production in Gluconobacter xydans", which we wish to be considered for publication in Biotechnology Letters.

Gluconobacter oxydans is a widely used bacterium in industrial process for its rapid and incomplete oxidation of sugars, alcohols and acids to compounds of commercial interest. Oxygen supply is one of the most important factors limiting these biotransformation efficiency and cell growth. To improve oxygen supply, Vitreoscilla hemoglobin, which has been successfully used for efficient oxygen utilization in several expression systems, was firstly introduced into G.oxydans. The resultant recombinant strain displayed a enhanced biomass and dihydroxyacetone production under both low and high aeration conditions. Results indicated that expression of VHb is a promising strategy which can partly solve the problem of oxygen deficiency in a fermentation process. So we believe this manuscript will make it interesting to general readers of Biotechnology Letters.

The work described has not been submitted elsewhere for publication, in whole or in part, and all the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed. In addition, I have read and have abided by the instructions for manuscripts submitted to Biotechnology Letters.

Finally, thank you very much for your considering our manuscript for potential publication. I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.

yours Sincerely,

Minghua Li

一篇稿子从酝酿到成型历经艰辛，投出去之后又是漫长的等待，好容易收到编辑的回信，得到的往往又是审稿人不留情面的一顿狂批。这时候，如何有策略有技巧的回复审稿人就显得尤为重要。好的回复是文章被接收的重要砝码，而不恰当的回复轻则导致再次修改从而拖延发稿时间，重则导致文章被拒，前功尽弃。下面把我平时总结的一些答复审稿人的策略和写回复信的格式和技巧跟大家交流一下。

首先，绝对服从编辑的意见。在审稿人给出各自的意见之后，编辑一般不会再提出自己的意见。但是，编辑一旦提出某些意见，就意味着他认为这是文章里的重大缺陷，至少是不合他的口味。这时，我们唯一能够做的只能是服从。因为毕竟是人家掌握着生杀予夺的大权。

第二，永远不要跟审稿人争执。跟审稿人起争执是非常不明智的一件事情。审稿人意见如果正确那就不用说了，直接照办就是。如果不正确的话，也大可不必在回复中冷嘲热讽，心平气和的说明白就是了。大家都是青年人，血气方刚，被人拍了当然不爽，被人错拍了就更不爽了。尤其是一些名门正派里的弟子，看到一审结果是major而不是minor本来就已经很不爽了，难得抓住审稿人的尾巴，恨不得拖出来打死。有次审稿，一个审稿人给的意见是增加两篇参考文献（估计也就是审稿人自己的文章啦），结果作者在回复中写到，making a reference is not charity！看到之后我当时就笑喷了，可以想象审稿人得被噎成什么样。正如大家所想的那样，这篇稿子理所当然的被拒了，虽然后来经编辑调解改成了major revision，但毕竟耽误的是作者自己的时间不是？

第三，合理掌握修改和argue的分寸。所谓修改就是对文章内容进行的修改和补充，所谓argue就是在回复信中对审稿人的答复。这其中大有文章可做，中心思想就是容易改的照改，不容易改的或者不想改的跟审稿人argue。对于语法、拼写错误、某些词汇的更换、对某些公式和图表做进一步解释等相对容易做到的修改，一定要一毫不差的根据审稿意见照做。而对于新意不足、创新性不够这类根本没法改的，还有诸如跟算法A，B，C，D做比较，补充大量实验等短时间内根本没法完成的任务，我们则要有理有据的argue。在Argue的时候首先要肯定审稿人说的很对，他提出的方法也很好，但本文的重点是blablabla，跟他说的不是一回事。然后为了表示对审稿人的尊重，象征性的在文中加上一段这方面的discussion，这样既照顾到了审稿人的面子，编辑那也能交待的过去。

第四，聪明的掌握修改时间。拿到审稿意见，如果是minor，意见只有寥寥数行，那当然会情不自禁的一蹴而就，一天甚至几小时搞定修改稿。这时候，问题在于要不要马上投回去了？我的意见是放一放，多看一看，两个星期之后再投出去。这样首先避免了由于大喜过望而没能及时检查出的小毛病，还不会让编辑觉得你是在敷衍他。如果结果是major，建议至少放一个月再投出去，显得比较郑重。

上面是一些一般性的答复审稿人的策略，在实际中的应用还需要大家见仁见智。下面谈谈答复信的写法。

写答复信的唯一目的是让编辑和审稿人一目了然的知道我们做了哪些修改。因此，所有的格式和写法都要围绕这一目的。一般来说可以把答复信分成三部分，即List of Actions, Responses to Editor, Responses to Reviewers。第一部分List of Actions的作用是简明扼要的列出所有修改的条目，让编辑和审稿人在第一时间对修改量有个概念，同时它还充当着修改目录的作用，详见下面的例子。剩下的两部分是分别对编辑和审稿人所做的答复，格式可以一样，按照“意见”－“argue”（如果有的话）－“修改”这样逐条进行。清楚醒目起见，可以用不同字体分别标出，比如“意见”用italic，“argue”正常字体，“修改”用bold。下面举例说明各部分的写法和格式。

编辑意见：请在修改稿中用双倍行距。

审稿人1：

意见1：置疑文章的创新性，提出相似的工作已经被A和B做过。

意见2：算法表述不明确。

意见3：对图3的图例应做出解释。

审稿人2：

意见1：图2太小。

意见2：第3页有个错别字。

很显然，根据上面的答复策略，我们准备对除1号审稿人意见1之外的所有意见进行相应改动，而对1.1采取argue为主的策略。答复如下：

List of Actions

LOA1: The revised manuscript is double spaced.

LOA2: A discussion on novelty of this work and a comparison with A and B have been added in page 3.

LOA3: A paragraph has been added in page 5 to further explain the algorithm ***.

LOA4: Explanations of the legend of Figure 3 have been added in page 7.

LOA5: Figure 2 has been enlarged.

LOA6: All typos have been removed.

==================分页=======================

Responses to Editor

请在修改稿中用双倍行距。

We have double spaced the text throughout the revised manuscript, see LOA1.

==================分页=======================

Responses to Reviewers

To Reviewer 1:

意见1：置疑文章的创新性，提出相似的工作已经被A和B做过。

Thank you for pointing this out. A and B’s research groups have done blablablabla. However, the focus of our work is on blablablabla, which is very different from A and B’s work, and this is also the major contribution of our work. We have added the following discussion on this issue in our revised manuscript, see LOA2.

“blablablabla(此处把A和B的工作做一个review，并提出自己工作和他们的区别之处)”

意见2：算法表述不明确。

We have added the following discussion to further explain algorithm ***, see LOA3.

“blablablabla（此处进一步解释该算法）”

意见3：对图3的图例应做出解释。

We have added the following explanations of the legend of Figure 3, see LOA3.

“blablablabla（图3图例的解释）”

==================分页=======================

To Reviewer 2:

意见1：图2太小。

We have enlarged Figure 2, see LOA 4.

意见2：第3页有个错别字。

We have removed all typos, see LOA5.

==================分页=======================

总之，写答复信的宗旨就是用最少的时间和工作量达到论文被接收的目的。这里权当是抛砖引玉，希望和大家多多交流。