Tips to Address Manuscript Journal Revisions

Written by Amil Agarwal

Congratulations! You are just one step away from a publication. A journal has shown interest in your work, and they are almost ready to give you the green light. Although you are closer to acceptance, a publication is not guaranteed. The purpose of this post is to describe how to optimize your revision to increase the likelihood of acceptance.

1. The Deadline

The worst mistake is to forget and miss the deadline. When the revise/resubmit decision email is sent, immediately make note of the date. Additionally, make sure the other authors know about the deadline so everyone can keep each other accountable. With this deadline in mind, plan on how to distribute the work, keeping in mind how long the edits may take. If you all agree that an extension is required, ask as soon as possible.

2. Allocate the work

All research groups are structured differently, but typically there are people who do the data and statistical analysis and those that do the literature review and writing. Split up the revision just as was done for the manuscript so that the experts who worked on those sections can address those comments.

3. Setting up the Reviewer Response

A reviewer response document is almost always required. The document consists of your responses to the reviewer’s suggestion on how you addressed their comments as well as where in the manuscript they were incorporated. To increase the likelihood of acceptance, it is important to address all comments and not just hand-select based on what you can address. When starting this process, copy and paste all the reviewer responses on a word document. It is important to set this up in the beginning to minimize error. Subsequently, go through each suggestion and add a line for author response and another for text changes as shown below:

Reviewer Suggestion: The authors need to be more explicit in their writing regarding how they conducted their statistical analysis.

Author Response:

Text:

4. Letter to the Editorial Board

Next, write the letter to the editors at the top of the reviewer response. Always thank the editorial board for reviewing your work. A sample letter is attached below:

Dear Editors, 

We thank the reviewers for their kind review of the manuscript (MANUSCRIPT NUMBER) “(MANUSCRIPT TITLE)”. We have addressed each of the questions and comments below in an itemized fashion and have made the suggested changes to the manuscript. Thank you again for your kind review and the opportunity to improve our work.

Sincerely,

The Authors

5. Content and Manuscript Track Changes

The first four sections are for organization and work allocation. Subsequently comes the work. Most journals require track changes for any alterations to the manuscript. An efficient way to go about addressing their suggestions is to first isolate the statistical and data-related comments. These suggestions can change the totality of the manuscript and typically require the most work. Start by compiling what needs to be done and rerun the data or statistical analysis to address their comments. Once these comments are addressed, immediately track change them into the revision manuscript as well as in the author responses. When leaving a response, always be courteous to the reviewers since they took the time to volunteer and review your work. Additionally, if you do not agree with a suggestion, always be respectful and justify your actions.

Once the data and statistical changes are addressed, what remains are the content comments. Tackle these chronologically to make sure all comments are addressed. Again, be courteous in your responses to the reviewers. If there is no way to address a suggestion by a reviewer, but you agree with their comment, acknowledge this limitation in the reviewer response and add their suggestion as a limitation to the study. It is better to address their comments as limitations as opposed to ignoring them. However, do not do this for all suggestions as this increases the likelihood of rejection, so try to address as many as you can.

Lastly, REVIEW. Have many eyes read the finalized revised manuscript to make sure it flows and makes sense. Sometimes lots of isolated changes can make the manuscript hard to read and so make changes accordingly.

Again, be proud that your work made it to revisions! It shows that experts are interested in your work. Follow this approach to increase the chance of acceptance.