Williams, Hywel C. (2004) How to reply to referees’ comments when submitting manuscripts for publication. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 51 (1). pp. 79-83. ISSN 0190-9622
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How to reply to peer review comments when submitting papers for publication
HC Williams PhD
Manuscript to be considered as a “special article” or e-blue for JAAD Corresponding author:
Prof. Hywel Williams
Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology
Queen’s Medical Centre
Nottingham NG7 2UH
Tel: +44 115 924 9924 x43000
Fax: +44 115 970 9003
e-mail: hywel.williams@nottingham.ac.uk
Conflict of interest: None
Abstract
editor decision
Background
The publication of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals is a fairly complex and step-wise process that involves responding to referees’ comments. Little guidance is available in the biomedical literature on how to deal with such comments
Objective
To provide guidance to novice writers on dealing with peer review comments in a way that maximises chance of subsequent acceptance
Methods
Literature review and review of the author’s experience as a writer and referee Results
Where possible the author should consider revising and resubmitting rather than sending their article elsewhere. A structured layout for responding to referees’ comments is suggested that includes the three “golden rules” of (i) responding completely (ii) responding politely and (iii) responding with evidence.
Conclusion
Responding to referees’ comments requires the writer to overcome any feelings of personal attack, and to instead concentrate on addressing referees’ concerns in a courteous, objective and evidence-based way.
Word count 147
Key words: Referee comments, reviewer comments, response
Introduction
Plenty of guidance is available on conducting good research1,2, and websites of most scientific journals give clear and helpful instructions on what is suitable for submission and how to submit. Yet where does one obtain guidance on replying to referees’ (peer reviewer) comments once the manuscript is returned? I could find little in the literature dealing with this important topic3-7.
This article attempts to address this gap by providing some helpful tips on how to reply to referees’ comments. In the absence of any systematic research to determine which strategies are “best” in terms of acceptance rates, the tips suggested below are based simply on my personal experience of publishing around 200 papers and of refereeing over 500 papers, as well as working as an editor for 3 dermatology journalsI have presented some aspects of the work previously in two workshops with groups of British Specialist Registrars in dermatology, and I am grateful to them for helping me to develop the learning themes.
I have deliberately not entered into any discussions on the quality of peer review8 or the value of peer review in publication since it is still hotly debated if peer review really helps to discriminate between go
od and bad research or whether it simply improves the readability and quality of accepted papers9. Instead, I have decided to stick to providing what I hope is helpful and practical guidance within the system that already exists .
That letter arrives from the journal…
After labouring for many months or years on your research project and having written many manuscript drafts in order to send off your final journal submission, a letter or e-mail from the journal arrives several weeks later indicating whether the journal editor is interested in your paper or not. At this stage, it is every author’s hope that the paper is accepted with no changes, yet such an experience is incredibly rare – it has happened to me only twice, and these were both commissioned reviews. More commonly, one of the following scenarios ensues:
ACCEPT WITH MINOR REVISION
If you are lucky, the letter will ask for only minor revisions. In such circumstances, it is probably best to simply get on with these without invoking too much argument. If you send the revised paper back to the editor quickly, it is still likely to be fresh in his/her mind, and you will probably get a speedy acceptance.
MAJOR REVISIONS NEEDED
The commonest form of letter is one that lists 2 or 3 sets of referees’ comments, some of which are quite major. In such circumstances, you will need to work hard at reading and replying to each referee in turn following the layout and three golden rules (Box 1) that I will develop later in this paper. Such a process can take days to complete, so do not underestimate the task. Only you can decide whether such an investment of time is worthwhile. My advice is always to revise and resubmit to the same journal if the comments are fair, even if responding to them takes a lot of time. Some authors go weak at the knees when requested to do a major revision, and instead simply send the paper
elsewhere. This is understandable, but the authors should still try and make improvements to the paper in light of the referees’ comments. Authors should also be aware that in certain fields of research, their work is likely to end up with the same referee when they send their paper to another major specialty journal. It will not go down well with that referee if they see that the authors have completely ignored the referees’ previous comments. So generally speaking, my advice is to put in the time needed to make a better paper based on the referees’ comments, and resubmit along the lines suggested. If you do submit to another journal, you should consider showing the “new” journal the previous referees’ comments and how you have improved the article in response to such comments –
some journal editors feel positively about such honesty (Bernhard JD, personal written communication, November 2003).
JOURNAL REQUESTS A COMPLETE REWRITE
Only you can decide if the effort of a complete rewrite is worth it. If it is clear that the referees and editor are interested in your paper and they are doing everything they can to make detailed and constructive suggestions to help you get the paper published, it might be a safer bet to follow their wishes of a complete rewrite. It might be difficult for the editor to then turn you down if you have done exactly what was asked of you. If on the other hand, the request for a complete rewrite is a cold one, ie without suggestions as to exactly what needs to be done and where, then it might be better to reflect on the other comments and submit elsewhere. Sometimes, referees may recommend splitting a paper if the paper is part of a large study that tries to cram in too many different results. Such a request from one of the referees may appear like a gift to the author – two for the price of