Responding to Peer Reviewers

Thank you for your query! One of the great strengths of the peer review system is that reviewer comments allow you to present a more well-rounded, comprehensive, and compelling account of your work, so taking advantage of any points of improvement raised by the reviewer, by making the relevant change to the manuscript, ensures you also improve the presentation of your study to your readership. Moreover, especially when reviewers raise clarification points around methodology, they may be raising questions that other academic peers would also have when reading the same manuscript, so it is a good idea to make such changes to the manuscript as well as clarifying the point for the reviewer’s own benefit. On the whole, there are good reasons to make changes to the manuscript in accordance with reviewer comments and usually very minimal drawbacks to make those changes, so the general recommendation would be to revise the manuscript accordingly, though of course it is always best to examine the specific case under consideration before making this decision.

Dear Author,The reviewer is likely implying that the findings are not novel and similar studies have been conducted. What you could do is elaborate on how your study contributes to the existing literature: even if the results are similar to what's been found, is the study adding to the results' robustness by testing the same parameters as previous studies but in different settings, using a different method etc.? In addition, if not already done, these previous studies will need to be cited.I wish you success with the publication of your manuscript.

Thank you for your question. It is plausible that a paper makes a good argument but doesn't justify it enough in the discussion, and hence the discussion can be developed further; however, this is not usually a cause for rejection (the reviewer would typically ask the author to further develop the discussion). We believe you can write back to the editor, offering to re-examine the discussion if required, even though you may not completely agree with the second comment. If the core idea of the research is sound, as the first reviewer suggests, then the discussion can be strengthened. Also, the major inconsistency in opinions indicates that the paper at least merits a re-examination.Whether you wish to rework the discussion or not, these articles may help you respond to the second reviewer’s comments: How to deal with conflicting reviewer comments: A case studyDo's and don'ts for responding to peer reviewers' commentsHow to write a great rebuttal letterWe wish you the very best with your paper!

While it is not common for peer-reviewers to ask a completely different set of questions, there is no hard and fast rule that they cannot. Sometimes your responses or another reading of the manuscript might raise more questions, which the peer reviewer missed in the first check. However, if the comments indicate additional experiments or extensive revisions, you may discuss this with the journal editorial office and ask for more time to revise your manuscript. In addition, if you feel that the suggestions in the second round of peer review are outside the scope of the current study, please bring that up with the journal editor as well. They have the last say on if the manuscript can be accepted and they can take a call on whether all the suggestions in the second round need to be implemented. It can be frustrating waiting for your manuscript to go through to the acceptance stage; we hope things work out, and we wish you all the very best! Related resources:How to respond to comments by peer reviewersHow To Handle & Respond To Peer Review Comments?Using peer review comments in a constructive way

Thank you for your question. We will try to answer your question by providing different scenarios explaining how selection bias can be a potential limitation in studies and by mentioning a solution on how to overcome the same:Scenario 1: During patient recruitment, some patients are less likely to enter a study whereas others are more likely. Such a sample is therefore not representative of the population in which this research is conducted. Subjects less likely to enter the study will be under-represented and those more likely to enter the study will be over-represented relative to others in the general population, to which the conclusions of your study are to generally applicable to. This is what is referred to as “selection bias.” Scenario 2: Selection bias can occur when people volunteer to participate in a study. Those who choose to join may share a characteristic that makes them different from non-participants. Consider a study to assess a program for improving the eating habits of shift workers. You put up posters where many people work night shifts and invite them to participate. However, those who sign up may be very different from those who don’t. They may be more health conscious, which...

Welcome to the Editage Insights Q&A Forum! Thank you for your question.   We have quite a few resources on writing the literature review on the forum and the Editage Insights website. We have linked a few of these below. For more help, you may look up the site using the relevant keywords.    Where will I receive recent literature reviews for my topic?  How to write the literature review of your research paper    5 Tips to write a great literature review   How To Do Literature Search And Review Effectively?   We also recommend that you use R Discovery, a free research discovery app with relevant, curated literature from PubMed and PubMed Central, Microsoft Academic. It has a simple interface and very useful features like notifications on recently published papers in your field of study, personalization, convenient search filters, bookmarking and more. Download the free app from Google Play or the App Store.  Hope that helps. All the best for your study!  

No, this is not necessary, and there are a few ways in which you can handle this, based also on what the journal recommends.At the time of resubmission, most journals need you to also upload the Track Changes version of the document along with the ‘clean’ one. This is for reference purposes. You could check the journal (re)submission guidelines; if not, you could check with the journal editor. You may also learn more through this related query by another researcher: Does the 'marked revision' mean the script with the track changes?If such a guideline is not provided, you could in the resubmission cover mail also attach the Track Changes version, naming it clearly to distinguish it from the cleaner version. And of course, mention this in the mail to the editor.In the cover mail, you could mention this dilemma that you faced, and perhaps add an example of how you have managed to shorten the text. This is also important to show that you have done due diligence to the review comments.That done, as this was a major revision, the comments were probably more about the scientific / technical aspects of your study. So, you would understandably need to ensure...

Let’s begin by pulling back a bit. Research aims to broaden knowledge in the physical, biological, and social spheres. This discovery of new knowledge can be either in the form of new concepts or the advancement of existing knowledge, leading to a new understanding or innovation. The findings of a study need to be appraised in the context of the field, as well as its practical utility. In other words, readers and other researchers are interested in knowing what your findings mean for your field, perhaps even other fields, as well as policymaking (if applicable). The implications of a study are typically described in the Discussion section or the Conclusion section (in journals where the latter is a separate section from the former), where the study limitations and road ahead are mentioned.Coming back, thanks for letting us know your field of study (computer science). Now, if we knew the exact area, or even whether it is a basic science or an applied science study, we could have provided some examples of likely practical implications. The implications of basic research (original investigation into the reasons behind a process or phenomenon) in this field would be the applications of the new knowledge...

You may be absolutely accurate in your evaluation. All the same, do consider for a while whether this may have been a genuine lapse or even a careless mistake on the part of the reviewer. Perhaps they didn’t notice your revisions, or maybe they were not careful about sending you an updated sheet.However, if you still feel the reviewer didn’t really look at the earlier version of the manuscript, you may go ahead and share this with the editor. Of course, you need to continue maintaining the polite tone you employed while responding to the comments, as you yourself said.You need to leave it to the editor to decide and take the next steps, be it asking the reviewer to look at the manuscript and your comments/changes or asking a new reviewer to do so. Incidentally, if the reviewer indeed is at fault, your manuscript may have been at the receiving end of the infamous Reviewer 2, a peer reviewer who is known to be demanding on the milder side and diabolical on the extreme side. :-/ Even in such a case, it would be best to leave it to the editor to determine how to handle this, especially as...

The reviewer(s) has/have pointed out issues around three aspects, and you have three questions. So, let’s take them in sequence.State of knowledgeThese could point to any of the following:An inadequate literature reviewThe findings not adding much to what is already known in the field or the specific topic you have addressed in your studyThe findings and/or the theories being too ‘far out’ (out of the ordinary)The third is probably the case because of the statement “There are unreasonable conclusions and a scientific perspective on the subject is less common.” Scientific perspectiveIt appears that you might have made a claim that is absolutely novel, making available scientific perspectives on the issue low to none. This often happens in science (for instance, in an emerging field of study) and is not always a negative thing. If you are confident of the veracity and soundness of your findings, you may confidently state your case, with adequate evidence and substantiation. For more help with communicating the novelty, see the related resource toward the end.ConclusionWe’ll discuss this in your question around conclusion.How do you respond to these questions?You could frame your response along these lines: “I/We acknowledge that there is limited literature on this topic,...