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NSMB’s tips for revising your paper in response to reviewers

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From: Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 17, 389 (2010)

Your paper went out to review, and after anxious waiting, you receive the letter asking for a revised paper. However, those ever-demanding editors and reviewers want more. One of the most important elements of a revision is the point-by-point response. Here are some tips for making it more effective.

Keep to the point. We [the NSMB editors] internally call this a point-by-point rather than a rebuttal, implying that it makes a series of points in response to each point raised by the reviewers. We will, and indeed have, read through 17-page point-by-points. But the longer the document gets, the more likely it is that the essence of your arguments will be lost in the mix.

Keep it objective. We have received comments from bewildered reviewers who do not understand why the tone of the point-by-point is so aggressive. Therefore, we will sometimes ask you to rewrite your response if it is overly pugnacious and we feel that this could affect the outcome of the review.

Keep things under control. There are definitely times for making a logical argument rather than adding new data and experimentation. That said, when fundamental technical concerns are raised or missing controls are being requested, the point-by-point is not the place for trying to dazzle your reviewers with argument and debate skills. Know when to go to the bench and when to argue.

The scope of things. Some requests might genuinely be beyond the scope of the manuscript or might simply be unfeasible. Make your response here as objective as possible. Say clearly and succinctly if something is unfeasible or if you think the results of such an experiment would be uninterpretable, and in both cases explain clearly why (pointing to the literature if needed) and how long the experiment will take to help make the case.

Some final points. There are some don’ts that should be obvious; but just in case, here are a few, in no particular order:

Telling us about your reputation, your pedigree, number of citations of your previous papers, your h-index, other Nature journals you have recently published in, etc. All interesting information but not pertinent to deciding the fate of the paper at hand.

Celebrity endorsements. Letting us know that a Nobel laureate enjoyed your talk at a recent meeting. Good to know but relatively meaningless. In fact, you never know—they could be moonlighting as your most critical anonymous reviewer.

Trying to guess who the reviewers are and then launching into a diatribe about their qualifications (or lack thereof).

And finally: “You recently published an even worse paper.”

All of these can be amusing to varying degrees but will do little to further your case.

Overall, it can be helpful to put yourself in the reviewer’s shoes and compose a response s/he would find appropriate, where the concerns raised are considered and fully addressed. In its ideal state, the review process is a positive and constructive back and forth, an intellectual discussion in which the manuscript is the ultimate beneficiary. Although it can be frustrating to be told at this stage that further revisions and experiments are a condition for publication of work that you felt was complete enough to submit, a common refrain after publication is for authors to express that, with the benefit of hindsight, the review process strengthened the paper. And a strengthened paper submitted at revision is the strongest rebuttal of all.

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