Writing a letter to the editor

Just as in any form of academic publishing or thesis writing, sending a letter to the editor of a journal shows you are a member of the intellectual community in your field. Your name is in print as a person of knowledge and ability. You have valuable opinions or information to contribute and wish to point out something that may have been stated insufficiently in an article you read. Unlike submitting a whole article, which is read and evaluated by many experts, if you write a letter it usually only needs to be approved by the editor. Keep in mind that editorial space is extremely limited and your observations must be really important to merit publication.

What should your letter contain?

Any letter to the editor should cite the article you are reacting to, mention what is wrong with it, explain exactly why it is wrong, and point out that readers should therefore not necessarily take its arguments to be true. All of this must be stated in as few words as possible and should be polite and respectful. It is essential not to seem angry or sarcastic in such a letter because the whole point of communicating with editors and the reading public is to show that you are a responsible and thoughtful expert, not a hot-headed complainer. In the UK, people who write angry letters to publications are called “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” as a ridiculous generic term for a reader who is always whining about something or other in the correspondence columns of newspapers. In the internet age, the often-savage anonymous comments below online articles remind us that in academic publications, a more civil tone should be aimed for. The point is to get your name out into the international world of research, so it is vital not to enrage senior colleagues if you can help it. Why bother to inform people that you exist if only to show that you are an enemy? If you would like your letter to be published, mark it clearly “For Publication.” Or if you only wish to inform the editor of your concerns but do not want it to be published for whatever reason, label it “Not For Publication.”

What happens to a letter after you send it?

Editors appreciate letters since they show that the journal has readers who take very seriously what is published in it. Many articles appear to no reaction at all, and if you take the time and trouble to write a response – even a negative one – then you are the kind of reader an editor values. Even if it is accepted for publication, your letter will in all likelihood be shortened by the editor for reasons of space. Any mistakes in grammar or fact will be fixed. You will be asked to state that you have no personal reason for opposing the research by the author of the article. In other words, you are an objective reader without any conflict of interest. This is only normal, as feuds and bad feeling exist in universities just as they do everywhere else on earth. If you are not clear that no conflict of interest exists, the editor may assume you hate the author of the article because he or she was hired for an important academic job instead of you or some other case of academic rivalry. It is important that you send your letter promptly because editors may decide to run any reaction to articles in the very next issue. If you wait months to send in your reaction, the editor may inform you that the article appeared too long ago for any reply to be timely. Usually the editor will show your letter to the author of the original article to allow for a response to your words in the same issue that your letter is printed. This kind of exchange can easily become impolite, so it is up to you to be extra-courteous. People do not like to be told that they are wrong and the more sure you are that the article is mistaken, the more reason you have to break the news gently.

What does the ideal letter to the editor contain?

At best, your letter will offer a concise evaluation as if you had been one of the expert readers who first approved the article for publication. Perhaps if you had been one of the referees, the article would not have appeared in the form that it did. You might have raised your objections before it appeared in print. Corrections to it after publication have the added value of making other readers aware of the author’s mistakes in method or findings. While it is generous to express total approval of any article in a letter, do not expect an editor to print a letter containing only positive feelings. Some editors ask that you keep letters to a maximum of 250 words, while others allow you to write as many as 400-500 words. Check the publication’s website or ask how many words are allowed before you send a letter. Do not include any diagrams or other illustrations since there will be no room to reproduce them. If you genuinely have a different point of view that disagrees so much with the original article that you need space to fully explain your ideas, perhaps you should write a new article instead of a letter.

For a style model, read published letters to the editor.

To know what a letter that editors approved looks like, see what has already been published in academic journals. You will note that they are written in a formal style, like the articles they comment upon. Most published letters are not casual or informal in tone. After you write your letter, wait for a couple of days and then look at it again before you send it. Do the points you make still seem as urgent and important? Ask an ajarn or fellow student to look at the letter to get another opinion. It may be that your reaction is not as essential as you first thought. Even so, the exercise of getting your ideas onto paper was useful and you did not waste your time. Whether or not you finally send the letter, it may serve as a starting point for new research that develops into an article, this time by you.

What a letter to the editor is not.

Since it is not peer-reviewed, a letter to the editor cannot take the place of an article in terms of your record of publications. Online indexes have made letters to the editor easier to find than they were previously, and it always helps to pay attention to any reaction an article may have. Intelligent readers will want to know about reactions to articles and so your thoughts will be noted. That is the real goal of writing letters, not to show yourself as a know-it-all or make another researcher look bad. It is to join the larger world of thought and prove that you deserve a place in it.

(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).