Q: How should I respond if I cannot address a reviewer's suggestion?

Detailed Question -

The reviewer thought it would be interesting to add a picture of the experimental setup of the sample in the testing machine, but I did not take pictures of the experimental setup at the time the experiments were performed. Could you please tell me how can I respond to the reviewer ? Thank you very much.

3 Answers to this question
Answer:

I think you should just be honest and mention to the editor that while you agree with the reviewer’s suggestion, you had not thought of this at the time of the experiment, and therefore, had not taken a picture. Ask if there is anything else, (for instance, a diagram or a flow-chart)  that can be used in place of the picture to make it interesting. Also, if it is possible for you to recreate the same setup without too much hassle, you can do that now and take a picture. You can send this picture explaining that this was not taken at the time of the experiment, and ask if it would serve the purpose.

Comment

Answer: Dear Dr. Eddy, Thank you very much for your response. Actually, I remained honest and my article was accepted for publication in their journal. Here is the answer I gave to the reviewer : " ... We thank the reviewer for doing an in-depth analysis of our study and providing such useful suggestion. We agree that adding this picture would certainly be of interest. Unfortunately, at the time the experiments were performed, we did not take pictures of the experimental setup. Indeed, xxx test being well documented in the literature, and with all due respect to the reviewer, we have not felt, at that time and much to our regret, the need to take photos. Nevertheless, in order to meet the reviewer concern, additional detail about the xxx machine we used to carry out our experiments has been added in the revised manuscript. The following sentence has also been added for clarification purposes ..." Thank you very much again
Comment
Answer:

I think you should just be honest and mention to the editor that while you agree with the reviewer’s suggestion, you had not thought of this at the time of the experiment, and therefore, had not taken a picture. Ask if there is anything else, (for instance, a diagram or a flow-chart)  that can be used in place of the picture to make it interesting. Also, if it is possible for you to recreate the same setup without too much hassle, you can do that now and take a picture. You can send this picture explaining that this was not taken at the time of the experiment, and ask if it would serve the purpose.

Comment