How to navigate the review process

Getting published: An adventurous journey

Crafting the manuscript Submitting the manuscript

Receiving a decision

Understanding reviewers’ feedback

Responding to reviewers

Revising the manuscript

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Responding to reviewers

Dealing with valid comments

Remind yourself: The editor and/or reviewer(s) believe this issue can be addressed.
Why else do you get the chances to revise? (#fatalflaw)

• Show that you did your homework & respect the reviewers’ efforts
• Do more than the reviewers ask for
• Run an additional study, re-analyze the data etc.
• Even if only presented in the revision notes
• Keep the role of each reviewer in mind
• Different foci (theoretical vs. empirical)
• Different levels of expectation (supportive vs. challenging)

Moorman, 2019

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Responding to reviewers

Dealing with invalid/poor comments

Ask yourself: Could the reviewer be correct? Is there some grain of truth in it?

• Do everything you can to follow a reviewer’s direction

• “I only published as much as I did because I do whatever reviewers ask from me.”
• Careful: Agreeing with idiotic points can threaten credibility (editor perspective)
• What if the reviewer misunderstood?
• Acknowledge that your way of communicating was not clear enough
• Clarify how you reorganized your material to avoid misunderstanding
• “Smart authors take the blame”
• But what if it is not in the best interest of your paper?
• Rebuttal needs to be based on compelling empirical evidence & conceptual logic
• Be overly polite and try to highlight how the comment inspired the revision anyhow

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Responding to reviewers

Dealing with contradictory comments

Keep calm: A carefully assessed and well-explained decision will be respected.

• Most editors will try to resolve inconsistencies among reviewers

• Occasionally, it does not happen
• Ask the editor for advice only as a last resort
• If you contact the editor, ask all of your question at one time
• Ask colleagues for their opinions
• If their suggestions converge (and ideally confirm your own intuition), go with it
• If their suggestions do not converge, consider contacting the (associate) editor
• Ensure to justify your decision to the editor (primarily) and the reviewers (secondarily)
• Ask for editorial guidance if an alternative solution is preferred

Feldman, 2005; Moorman, 2019

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Responding to reviewers

Crafting responses

Advice: Spend as much time on writing the responses as on the actual revisions

• Write the responses first, revise afterwards

• Avoid careless mistakes (e.g., typos, formatting issues)
• Provide a summary of the major revisions
• Reproduce each reviewer comment
• Adopt the reviewers’ ways of putting it
• Present your “solutions” in a concise way
• Provide a preview of the actual revisions,
incl. references to the main document
• Present additional material (e.g., tables), if needed
• Acknowledge the reviewers’ contribution to the improvement of your work

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