sci-cover-letter
Use when writing the editor-facing cover letter for Science (AAAS) — a tight, significance-forward pitch, not a summary, that lets the editor decide within two minutes whether the paper clears the broad-interest bar and should go out for external review.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill sci-cover-letter --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Cover Letter & Editor Pitch (sci-cover-letter) ## When to trigger - Ready to submit and need the editor-facing letter. - The current letter is a formality ("please find enclosed…") with no argument. - You need to argue *broad significance* explicitly to survive triage. ## What the cover letter is for Science editors triage fast. The letter must let an editor decide, in **under two minutes**, that the paper is plausibly broad enough to review. It is a **significance argument**, not a summary. ## Structure (≈ 250–400 words, one page) 1. **Opening claim (2–3 sentences).** The one-sentence advance (`sci-framing`) plus why it matters to a broad audience. Lead with the result, not the background. 2. **Why Science specifically (2–3 sentences).** Why this is general-interest, not specialist — what communities beyond your own will care and why now (`sci-framing` why-now trigger). 3. **What's new vs. prior work (2–3 sentences).** The decisive distinction from the closest prior papers, including any concurrent work. Pre-empt "isn't this known?". 4. **Format & logistics (short).** "We submit this as a Report/Research Article. The work has not been published and is not under consideration els
- When to trigger
- What the cover letter is for
- Structure (≈ 250–400 words, one page)
- The significance paragraph test
- Logistics to include
- Tone
- Cover-letter pass for Science
- Before/after: the significance paragraph
- Common cover-letter failure modes (and the fix)
- Output format
- Anti-patterns
What does the sci-cover-letter skill do?
Use when writing the editor-facing cover letter for Science (AAAS) — a tight, significance-forward pitch, not a summary, that lets the editor decide within two minutes whether the paper clears the broad-interest bar and should go out for external review.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill sci-cover-letter --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.