How to Respond to Reviewer Comments Effectively After Journal Submission

After submission of manuscript, when you are waiting for the response of peer reviewers. Remind yourself that they are more likely to provide feedback requiring you to make some changes before publication. The majority of the researchers get hopeless at this stage. They let go of their dream of getting a research paper published. It is rare for high impact journals like ISI and Scopus to accept a study without requiring few more revisions. Today, many of the published authors once were standing in the exact same position as you. If they would not have effectively responded to the reviewers’ comments, they might have been rejected.

In this blog, we will discuss some important steps that can help you effectively respond to reviewers’ comments. It will help you in journal submission of your research paper.

1. First Categorise Reviewers Comments

You might ask why it is necessary to categorise the comments? It is important because then you will be able to analyse whether you want to make changes and resubmit or just leave it.
Categorise the feedback in the following groups:

• Minor Revision If the comments are sound like our reviewers found your study interesting. In order to publish we would like to suggest a few changes. You can be hopeful and put effort because your paper is more likely to get published after minor changes.
• Major Revision If the comments sound like “we reviewed your paper and it requires xyz changes, we might require further revisions before considering your paper for publication”, you can categorise it in major revision. There is still hope, as they did not use the term rejection. Now you can think whether to make those major changes and how.
• Rejection with Invite to Resubmit If the reviewers reject your paper and invite for resubmission. Often it requires you to rewrite the entire manuscript in a new way and then resubmit it with no guarantee of acceptance again.
• Outright Rejection If the reviewers do not invite you for resubmission in the entire feedback, then it is outright rejection. They do not accept the paper even if written anew, so do not waste your time and energy.

2. Prepare Response Column

This step is extremely important for you as an author of the manuscript. Once you receive feedback, make sure to create a separate column where you mention feedback. Make sure you have a separate column for response. It will help you when you decide to write a response letter to the reviewers. So, when you decide to write feedback and response on a column, first start with the easiest one. It will help you build momentum, and the reviewers will be able to see your effort. Remember, experts, even through your tone of language, understand whether you are a serious researcher or not. Lastly, it will help them understand your study better. You might decide to start with the difficult one to get it done with, but it can backfire. Reviewers go through multiple responses a day, and throwing difficult information first would only result in misunderstandings and miscommunication. Remember, response column is for you so that you:

• Do not miss any feedback points raised by reviewers
• Do not repeat similar responses
• Do not get confused where to respond from
• Forget to add important details
• Lack in clarity

3. Keep the Tone Professional

It is expected from you to get a little defensive if the work you put in gets challenged, but try to talk it through. If you somehow took the reviewers’ comments personally, remember, it is not an attack on your qualification and research abilities. It is simply feedback to your manuscript, and you can make changes that will help you get published. So try to keep your tone professional and respectful rather than defensive and emotional, as it may reflect immaturity and lack of acceptance for growth and learning from your side. Phrasing your statements like “I appreciate you pointing out xyz, and I made abc changes” also give a complete explanation regarding the changes made in revised manuscript.

4. Response Letter

Finally comes the response letter, and you need to write it effectively because, remember, they perceive what you wrote and how you approached their feedback, and not what you meant. So work on your ability to explain and respond to something clearly so that it can be perceived with care and not harshness.

In this step, your response column that you prepared initially will help you a lot.

• Start by acknowledging reviewers’ feedback and thank them for their time and effort put on reviewing your manuscript.

• Then proceed with answering each feedback from easy to difficult.

• Lastly, even if you need to disagree or reject a change they suggest still phrase it respectfully.

5. Do Not Give Ambiguous Responses

At times, reviewers’ certain feedback does not click or make sense. Often many new researchers consider it embarrassing to admit that they do not understand the suggestions provided by the reviewers. Instead, they craft an ambiguous response to these suggestions, phrasing unclear sentences, claiming that they made the changes without mentioning the comment of the reviewer. The  response can get confusing for the reviewers, and it can raise questions on your credibility as a researcher. Remember, you do not have to show your language skills; you need to show clarity in your language for them to get impressed by your response to their feedback.

Conclusion

In this blog we discussed the ways through which you can effectively respond to reviewers comments without getting defensive. We discussed how you can craft a response email while keeping a professional tone. Additionally we discussed how you should prepare a response column prior to writing a response email. Lastly we mentioned the importance of acknowledging reviewers comments and providing clarity with respect to your study findings.