Q: How to respond to a reviewer comment that we cannot address?
I submitted a paper to a journal, and after 5 months the editor sent an email:
"I have decided that your manuscript can be accepted for publication after you have carried out the corrections as suggested by the reviewer(s)."
The reviewer strongly recommends publishing the paper, and besides some other necessary corrections that we have made, he/she gave a minor suggestion:
"The authors may wish to consider posting some related questions to increase the interest of the readers."
How to respond to this suggestion if we have no further ideas? Can this lead to rejection?
Since you are so close to publication, it would be really great if you could come up with one or two questions even if you are not very sure of them. It would at least show that you have made an effort to address the comment.
However, if you cannot think of anything at all, I think it would be best to be honest about it. You can say that while you agree with the reviewer's suggestion, you have not been able to come up with any question.
Hopefully, if you have addressed all the other comments satisfactorily, not addressing just one comment will not lead to a rejection. However, I would strongly recommend that you put your thinking cap on and try to come up with at least one or two questions. It would be really unfortunate if at all you get rejected because of such a small thing after you have come this far.
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This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage