How to respond to reviewers & resubmit
Last updated
Last updated
The wait is over, you've just gotten your reviews back! Congratulations!
First: Copy the response letter from the editor, and all the responses from reviewers into a google doc. Send this to your co-authors!
Next, separate reviewer responses into actionable comments, and color code them, either into a system of easy to answer/substantial writing & reframing/ completely new analysis suggested, or divide them by who should take on responding to them (if multiple authors are working on the revisions).
Take a day to think about them, but then get to work— responding to reviewers & resubmitting should now be your highest priority.
Differentiate your response from the reviewer's comments visually, either in color, font, bold, italic, or a combination.
Respond to every single comment: thanking the reviewer for the suggestion, answering any questions they raised, explaining your thought process about how you have changed the paper in response, and then indicate exactly what in the text you changed, copying the updated excerpt from the manuscript over to the letter. Use a third visually distinct font style and make sure to contain the excerpts in quotes. Distinguish between text from the original version and newly added/rewritten text by underlining new additions.
For example:
You can also disagree with a suggestion, but be very thorough and respectful in your explanation why. Be prepared to cite previous literature that supports your approach, or to report the results of whatever they asked you to do but explain why it doesn't clarify or add additional information for the reader and say you're happy to include it if the editor thinks it'll be stronger.
You may reference your responses to other comments e.g. to avoid copy and pasting the same chunk of text, or to explain why you have removed something, etc.
Once you finish responding to a comment, change its highlight color so you can keep track of what you have/haven't done yet.
Add comments to yourself to signal the beginning and end of each change, and reference which reviewer comment they correspond to. This will make it easier for you to a) make sure you've made revisions in accordance with every comment, and b) paste the correct text into the response letter.
1) Go back through every reviewer response and make sure your copy/pasted text in the response document match the latest version of what's in your manuscript! And vice versa, if you wrote new sentences in the reviewer response, make sure you have actually changed them in your manuscript.
2) Check for typos and formatting errors! If your revisions are as ~finished and thorough~ as possible, it'll signal that you took their advice seriously and aren't rushing to get it back.
3) If you're writing your manuscript through an .rmd/LaTex doc/other programmable format, change the copy/pasted text to match how it looks when it's rendered, not the code format. (E.g. citations and results text)
4) write a letter to the editor thanking them for their and the reviewer's feedback, and summarize at a high level how you have changed your manuscript in response!
5) Send this letter and your updated manuscript to your co-authors for review!
6) When your co-authors have signed off on your changes, re-read the editor's email and check what format they'd like your documents in. (e.g. single pdf, manuscript separate from reviewer response, each individual's review separately, etc.)
