SCIENCE 311 – JUSTIFICATION LETTER
Goals
 Ensure that your paper has been thoroughly revised
 Justify choices made in preparation of final draft
Before a journal article can be published, it is reviewed by at least two of the author’s peers.
The author receives the reviewer comments and makes changes to their manuscript
accordingly. When the final draft is submitted, the author must provide a covering letter that
addresses the reviewer’s concerns as to why those changes were or were not made.
Within the American Chemical Society author guidelines:
http://pubs.acs.org.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/paragonplus/submission/orlef7/orlef7_authguide.pd
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The Editors’ acceptance of a manuscript for publication is contingent on the author’s submitting, within a
reasonable time, a revised manuscript appropriately addressing reviewer and Editor concerns.
Changes to the manuscript, whether or not made in response to those comments, should be described in a cover
letter.
Within the Geological Society of America (Geology) author guidelines:
http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/geoguid1.htm
Nearly all manuscripts are returned to the author with suggestions for revision, condensation, or final polish. If the
revised manuscript and the author's cover letter show that the author has conscientiously considered the
reviewers' suggestions, the manuscript may be accepted directly
Instructions
You will write a justification letter to your TA (your reviewer) to address the comments and
suggestions that were provided for the improvement of your paper. Although you are not
required to make all the changes suggested, you must show that you considered these
comments in preparation of the final draft.
This will ensure that you have revised your paper completely. It will also ensure that you have
considered why these comments were made, and how such changes impact the effectiveness
of your paper.
 After completing revisions to your paper, compose an email justification letter to your TA
according to the guidelines above.
 Attach your final draft to the email in .pdf format.
 Send the email to your TA by noon on March 4, 2008 (same date the final draft is due).
 The Justification Letter score will be converted to a score out of 2. You will also receive a score
out of 2 for your Checklist. These two scores out of 2 will be added to the score for your Paper
1 out of 20 for a total of 24 marks for Paper 1.
 Important: Scores of less than 50% on the Justification Letter will indicate that Paper 1 was not
thoroughly revised before submission of the final draft. If you score less than 50%, you will be
contacted by the Course Coordinator to set up an appointment. Based on the appointment, an
appropriate course of action will be planned by the student and the Coordinator. The Final
Paper will only be accepted under these arrangements.