Q: How should I inquire with the publisher about a typo in my published paper?

Firstly, congrats on having your paper published! Also, it’s great that you are continuing to be diligent about it even after it was published. Of course, it would have been great to catch this issue at the proofing stage, but that’s fine – minor errors do get through sometimes.

However, a couple of things are not entirely clear. One, you have said both ‘typo’ and ‘typos.’ (For now, we have changed it to ‘typo.’) If there is only one typo, that should not be an issue to change – especially if the article is only online. If there is more than one typo (in fact, multiple), the editor might take time to attend to this issue – also because it’s in the appendix, which not everyone may read. Then, you say that you wish to modify a few lines of sentence. Is this beyond the issue of the typo(s)? If so, all these changes might indeed take time for the editor to look into and address.

Coming to your query, as you have been corresponding with the editor so far, writing to them again should not be a problem. You can say that you noticed a typo (or a few), and apart from that, wish to make a few changes. You can add a reason – to add a rationale for the change. For instance, you could said it affects understanding/comprehension, it’s not entirely accurate, it might mislead people, and so on.

For templates, you may refer to those in this handbook and modify them to suit your purpose: A practical handbook of templates for communicating with the journal

Hope that helps. All the best for making the changes! :-)

Related queries:

• Is it okay to correct an error in a published paper?
• Can I correct an error I detected after the article was published online?