Scientists pride themselves on clear, logical and concise communication. So naturally, the process for publishing our research involves an absurd number of formalities, like coming up with 700 slightly different ways to ‘thank the reviewer for their insightful comment’. Nevertheless, I’m told this is all a necessary part of spreading your beautiful researcher butterfly wings—and frankly, I’m enough years into my DPhil to stop questioning every quirk of academia. However, the current protocol for new researchers wanting to learn the moves to this bizarre dance seems to be begging postdocs/ old timers for examples of cover letters, marked-up manuscripts, and reviewer responses. To attempt to save everyone some time, I thought I’d provide some guidance and templates here.