Dear all,

I have just received feedback from a journal that they are interested in publishing my submission, subject to addressing the remarks of the peer reviewers.

Reviewer 1 seems perfectly happy with what is written and has only made very minor corrrections, which I am completely happy with.

Reviewer 2 expects major changes, which would not only be a lot of work, yet it would, in my opinion, completely ruin the congruence of the paper. In other words it would make it a "bad" paper.

I am tempted to say that I go with reviewer 1, to mention to reviewer 2 that the paper was created over many months with very careful considerations by all authors and that we do not agree with such extensive alterations.

However I am also a bit anxious that the paper would be rejected, and that I have to start the submission process again for another journal, which would mean that adjustments would be required anyway (based on the submission protocol, which for each journal is slightly different).

Any thoughts?

Its hard to comment without specific detail Would it be possible just to acknowledge REviewer 2's standpoint throughout the article, without taking his approach. E.g. "WE are doing it this way, although others would do it the other way, but they are wrong because A, B, C....."

Hi Sneaks,

thanks for your reply.

It is a study based on focus group interviews.

Reviewer 1 just wanted some changes of wording regarding cetain elements, which is fine.

Reviewer 2 remarked a lot more on content, expressed that certain quotes were not representative for what the text indicated. She advised a change of quotes. Obviously the authors have spent a lot of time on the actual data analysis and have specifically used those as being the best ones. In other words using other ones would, in my opinion, weaken the argument, the text needs to be fully changed, this again would have an impact on the introduction and conclusion.

She also thought that the title did not completely represent what comes forward in the paper, while in our view is says exactly what is in the tin.

Do you know whether reviewer remarks are just suggestions or do they have to be followed?

Have you tried getting a third party to read through it - who doesn't have an agenda and see what they think (make sure its not someone who will want their name on the paper). It may be that reviewer 2 is right. A change of title is simple. It may be that you can add to the quotes you have already pulled out to demonstrate your point easier - so not remove the original ones, just add more.

It sounds like the work might be quite disjointed - i.e. you say that other people did the analysis and you seemed to have written it up? - maybe go back to the people that analysed it and ask their opinion.

Hi Sneaks,

thanks for your suggestions.

Sorry for the confusion. When I wrote regarding the authors and the data analysis, I meant myself as one of them.

The problem with adding quotes is that there is a limit regarding the word count. I am just at the edge in words, and as such if I add something I need to take something else away.

Good point regarding asking a third unrelated person.

Perhaps other forum users have any suggestions? I would find that really useful, as it helps as a means of reflection.

Maybe check the word count with the editor - sometimes they will give leeway for such things.

Hi Rick

Well, I've been completely burned my writing journal articles and am now bitter and twisted...but in my experience, reviewers do expect that the changes will be made, unless you have a really strong argument for why you shouldn't. Can you do a minimum of reviewer 2's changes? Include some more quotes as they've suggested, lose some of yours and yes, this will mean restructuring and rewriting (aarggh!).

Sometimes I think they just like doing this because they can...

I have had 'anonymous' reviewers that suggest that certain authors e.g. smith (2000; 2001; 2002; 2004) should be cited - i.e. its obviously their own paper that they want more citations for!

Sue,

Funny, just posted something on your thread, now saw your remarks on here. Thanks for those.

Like you wrote must be very annoying to have to go through changing papers all the time. Perhaps it help to see that to a certain extent were all in the same boat.

I have seen the text of my paper so often, it has been fine tuned to often, they I just cannot find the energy to go through it again!

Sneaks,

yeah, the word count. I could also use it the other way round: I can only make minor changes taking the limited word count into account;-)

I know the reviewer's names yet I do not recongise them from the literature, otherwise could add a reference from them to make them happy!

A paper I have just got published went to three separate journals and the final one - we got revise and resubmit twice and so all in all we have had to change it about 10 times - for all the different reviewers from the different journals - but now I look back at that first draft - it was appalling and I can definitely see why it didn't get in!

Hey Rick! I found myself in a similar position recently with a review article I submitted, where Reviewer 1 suggested very minor changes, yet Reviewer 2 wanted a fairly major revision. Unfortunately we found some of Reviewer 2's comments and suggestions to be a little unreasonable and actually somewhat irrelevant. It was clear that he/she was studying a similar phenomenon but in a different population, and he/she appeared not to be very familiar with what research has been done in the field I am in. It was a really good journal though so we thought we would revise and resubmit anyway, even though the editor had said it would need to go back to the reviewers before he could make a decision. In the end we responded to each comment as best we could and did make quite a few smaller changes, but didn't budge on the issues we felt were irrelevant or unnecessary for our paper. But we did politely explain our reasoning and why we were not able to respond to some of the points (the reviewer wanted us to change our inclusion criteria to include research that had never even been undertaken etc). I got an email today saying that the paper has been accepted with no further changes whatsoever- we only resubmitted it about a fortnight ago so clearly it never even underwent the second round of reviews. So I can only conclude that the editors will look at each case and make their own judgements about what is reasonable and what isn't once you have responded to the reviewers' comments. Thus if you are really unhappy about making these changes and you can justify your reasons then just go for it- I don't think you will automatically be rejected just because you don't agree with every comment. Especially if you really want it in that particular journal! Good luck with it! KB

Hi Keenbean,

thank you for your extensive posting and for your specific advice. This is very helpful.
I think I will follow a similar line as you did: Acknowledge the reviewer's points, change the minor issues, explain politely why certain areas should not be changed and for what reason.

Also thanks to all other posters, appreciate it.