Submitting your paper is a momentous occasion for a PhD student – well any researcher, really! Its such a relief to get the work complete and wrapped up in a nicely formatted manuscript and sent off to the journal for consideration. Invariably the work has been going on for a while, often years, and you’ve probably received more comments from supervisors or co-authors than you found strictly necessary. So when your paper is returned from the journal with a ‘major revisions’, ‘reject’ or ‘reject with an invitation to resubmit’ it can be quite deflating! I took to twitter to find out the best tips from academics for the way to respond to reviewer comments on your manuscript. Thanks to all those who kindly shared their advice! Here are the major principles summarised across the advice.
1. Positivity, and gratitude
Opt for the highest standards of politeness and respectfulness. (“Even when the reviewer is making you question your life choices” – Tim Doherty, Deakin University)
While it is often frustrating to be asked to make dozens of changes to a manuscript that you’ve already redrafted 20 times, particularly when you feel that the reviewer may have missed the point; its important to keep in mind that the reviewer has volunteered their time, and their suggestions can actually make the paper better. Uphold high standards for kindness, positivity and gratitude. Thank your reviewers.
Don’t take the criticisms personally, and give yourself a few days before responding so you can look with clear fresh eyes instead of defensiveness! Be as polite as you can, even when disagreeing with a suggested edit.
2. Agreeability
Make all the changes that the reviewers ask, unless you have strong grounds not to. Demonstrating that you’re agreeable and happy to modify your work to improve it shows the editor that you’re willing to work with them and the reviewers to get your paper over the line. Start with what you have changed, and leave any arguing for later. Arguing telegraphs to the editor that an issue is unresolved so your manuscript will have to go back out to review (which pretty much always results in more requested changes and more work!)
And don’t fight the editor!
Simon Linke (Griffith University) offered the 90/10 rule: accept 90% of the suggested edits, and save the fight for the 10% that you feel strongly about.
In some cases you may see grounds for arguing why you should not make the changes you’ve been asked to do. For example, the reviewers often ask for substantially more work than what you’ve already done. In other cases, their suggestions might be taking the paper in a completely new direction that isn’t relevant to your question. In this case, politely state your case. Where possible, edit the manuscript to clarify the writing that directly addresses the reviewer’s point so that it is clear why you did what you did.
3. Clarity
Make it completely clear and easy for the editors to see exactly what was suggested and what you did. Make the editor’s job as straightforward as possible to see how you’ve changed the manuscript. Some ways to do this are:
a. Make a separate document outlining the comments and the response.
b. Use a matrix to show every suggestion by the reviewer or editor, and how you responded to it. Number the suggestions.
c. The 1st sentence of every response to every comment should be what you changed in the paper. What you disagree with or caveats come after what you changed.
d. Respond to every suggestions by the reviewers and editors, no matter how minor.
e. Use quotation marks to indicate the exact new text that you’ve added to the manuscript – don’t make the editor search for your changes.
f. Use continuous line numbers in your manuscript so the reviewer can point out which line they’re referring to, and you can indicate where your changes are.
g. If the reviewer asks why you did something, or what you meant, don’t just answer in your reply to the editors! They’re indicating something in your manuscript was unclear, so revise accordingly.
h. Get your co-author(s) to review your response document, and get them to check that your language isn’t too defensive, and that everything you’ve got in there is clear.
Further reading:
Josh Cinner (James Cook University): has published a whole series of videos on "getting published in peer review". He give my pro tips for dealing w/ reviews at about 14 mins into this one: https://youtu.be/VfdGuXfpqW8 rest of the series can be found online: https://www.coralcoe.org.au/the-cinner-research-group
Williams, H. C. (2004). How to reply to referees' comments when submitting manuscripts for publication. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 51, 79-83.