How to Write Point to Point Response to Reviewers

In February 2020, Nature announced that it would give authors the option to publish their referee reports and responses to reviewers. Though this change is simply a trial for this periodical, other Nature Inquiry journals take opened the peer-review procedure. I applaud the effort of these and other journals to make peer review more transparent, and hope it will become a standard.

Whether you publish your referee reports with your newspaper or not, how y'all respond to reviewers' comments on submitted articles is essential to publication.

This guide tin help you prepare well-crafted letters to reviewers.

The right mindset drives the right response

Before you respond to reviewers' comments, celebrate that your research newspaper was sent to peer review. And be grateful that the reviewers carved time out of their schedules to evaluate your work for free.

Getting a harsh reviewer is possible, but it doesn't happen oftentimes. Well-nigh reviewers are helpful and offer constructive criticism, but they don't waste much ink praising the manuscript.

While a helpful review summarizes the major positives and details the negatives of a manuscript, in general, well-nigh reviewer comments are negative. Or, you'll perceive them as negative. This doesn't hateful your newspaper has more weaknesses than strengths. It ways that the reviewer has to detail your paper's limitations, as these—non its stiff points—need to be addressed past your revision.

Revise the manuscript earlier yous respond to reviewers

When you're fix to deal with the reviewers' comments in a professional person, objective manner, talk over the peer review reports with your co-authors.

Decide which changes to accept and which to rebut, revise the paper, and only then start writing your responses to reviewers.

Responding to reviewers' comments

• Begin by thanking the reviewer for taking the time to assess your manuscript.
• So, specify that you've addressed all the concerns they raised. Addressing a reviewer's comment doesn't mean you made the alter the reviewer suggested. It means that you've considered it and either fabricated the alter or explained why y'all chose non to.
• List all the reviewer's comments and your answer to each one. Utilise a different font or color to highlight your responses. This makes the text easier to scan.
• Avert giving yes or no answers. Even if you've been asked to make modest changes, such every bit correcting a misspelled word, say "We've corrected the typo." If it'south a more serious mistake, you may also add "We apologize for our mistake."
• Whenever possible, make your responses to reviewers self-contained. The reviewer or editor shouldn't have to peruse the manuscript to detect a change you made. And so, instead of "We've made the change. Encounter page 5, line 24 of the revised paper", write "We've inverse [original text] to [edited text] (folio 5, line 24)". But if you rewrote an entire paragraph or section, respond, "We take revised the text to address your concerns and hope that information technology is now clearer. Please encounter page v of the revised manuscript, lines 9–twenty, and folio half dozen, lines 1–20."
• Do not omit any concern raised by a reviewer. Yous should accost each and every annotate—either make the alter or reject it and justify your selection.
• Pick your battles wisely: Even if you don't concord with a minor alter suggested past a reviewer, it'southward usually easiest to just brand the alter. It shows you're open to suggestions.
• Be tactful when explaining why you disagree with the reviewer. To support your argument, you may use supplementary textile, such as figures and tables, that you won't include in the manuscript.
• When a reviewer fails to sympathize a betoken you made, don't presume they're ignorant. If they failed to understand something you wrote, y'all've failed to express your idea clearly, and you dislocated at least ane reader. And then, information technology'southward likely the text needs editing for clarity and logic. (Related post: What to do if the journal editor recommends English language language editing services).
• Respond to each referee equally if they were the only reviewer of your paper. Do not respond to one reviewer with "Please see our reply to comment 34 of Reviewer #2".
• Finish the letter of the alphabet to the reviewer with a sentence such every bit, "Nosotros would similar to give thanks the referee again for taking the fourth dimension to review our manuscript."

How to reply to peer review comments when submitting papers for publication

The length of a response depends on the complexity of the question. I've edited two-page letters to reviewers, and I've edited 30-page letters. A letter of the alphabet to a reviewer should be as long as information technology needs to be to allow you lot to show you've considered the criticism you lot received.

When you agree with a reviewer

This is the simplest case. Acknowledge your error and confirm you lot've corrected it.

Examples:

• We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have revised
• We have removed
• We hold and have updated
• We have stock-still the error
• This observation is right. Nosotros take changed
• We have made the change. The new sentence reads as follows

When you disagree with a reviewer'southward annotate

Choose your words advisedly when drafting your response. First, emphasize any part of the reviewer'southward annotate you agree with. Then explicate why you chose not to make the change.

Examples:

• We concord with the reviewer that further elaborating on this indicate using new data would exist helpful. However, we believe that expanding our dataset is neither feasible, given the costs involved, nor would significantly support our argument. For this reason, we chose not to make this modify, only we added the following judgement to paragraph iii in the discussion: "Though having a larger dataset would offer further insight…".
• Nosotros repent if our original Figure 2 did not evidence…. We did non intend to…. We accept modified the figure and hope that it is at present articulate that…. We believe that adding a new figure, as the reviewer suggested, would exist unnecessary given that our new Figure 2 shows….
• Nosotros appreciate the reviewer's insightful suggestion and agree that it would be useful to demonstrate that…; however, such an assay is across the scope of our newspaper, which aims only to show that…. Withal, we recognize this limitation should exist mentioned in the paper, so we added the post-obit sentence….

In sum, whether you hold or disagree with the reviewer, aim to prove that you understood their comments and took them seriously.

What to practice when reviewers disagree

When reviewers give you conflicting suggestions, don't respond, "Equally another reviewer suggested the contrary, we didn't change the text". Make a determination. Selection the suggestion yous agree with and justify your choice to the other reviewer.

For example, you may say something similar this, "As we received conflicting advice from another reviewer, nosotros decided to make the change they suggested, considering…. We hope this was the right decision."

How to respond to reviewer comments—journal examples

Hither are some examples of letters to reviewers. Note that the authors who rejected a reviewer's proffer provided a valid justification:

• https://authors.library.caltech.edu/64174/4/ncomms12396-s2.pdf
• https://www.cs.sfu.ca/~haoz/pubs/zhang_cgf09_review_response.pdf
• https://www.bmj.com/sites/default/files/attachments/bmj-article/pre-pub-history/Second_response_18.5.15.pdf
• https://perso.citi.insa-lyon.fr/rstanica/reviews/answers1.pdf
• https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-020-14449-z/MediaObjects/41467_2020_14449_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
• https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-020-14661-x/MediaObjects/41467_2020_14661_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

To find other examples, check the journals that publish the correspondence between authors, reviewers, and periodical editors.

Responding to reviewers: Advice from the perspective of a language editor

When you respond to reviewers' comments, maintain a positive attitude and exist open to criticism. Your responses will tend to reflect your attitude at the time of writing. Word pick, tone, syntax—they may all reveal to the reader your true colors.

I've edited letters to reviewers that conveyed the message that their authors did not welcome criticism to their manuscripts. Their tone was overly formal, the sentences too short, and the examples few. These letters needed editing for way to brand them sound more like a discussion between professionals than a court defense.

And I've edited other letters that showed the author genuinely appreciated the reviewers' comments. The authors of these letters used a positive tone, and their language was less formal and more than conversational.

In my experience, the letters in the first category tend to be much shorter than those in the second, and maybe it's not only a coincidence.

Responding to reviewers can seem similar a chore, equally nobody likes their work to be criticized. Merely if you come across the reviewers' comments every bit an opportunity to improve your research newspaper and go credit for it, responding to reviews volition feel less burdensome.

Do your letters to reviewers need editing? Send me a bulletin at editor@languageediting.com

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Source: https://www.languageediting.com/how-to-respond-to-reviewers-comments-a-practical-guide-for-authors/

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