Assessing Manuscript Suitability: The Journal Editor's Initial Review

The initial review process, the journal editors aim to assess whether the manuscript: has potential for a positive evaluation by the journal’s peer reviewers, makes a clear and relevant contribution to the respective field, and adheres to the editorial guidelines of the journal.

Mastering the Revise and Resubmit Process: A Ten-Step Strategy for Successful Revisions

Peer review provides evaluative feedback, categorized as reject, revise and resubmit, or accept. “Revise and Resubmit” (R&R) feedback requires strategic response, addressed with a ten-step strategy for fruitful revisions.

Maximizing Publication Success: Importance of Effective Strategies and Addressing Reviewer Criticisms

The most favorable outcome for submitting to a high-profile publication is receiving an invitation to resubmit after addressing the reviewers’ concerns. The author has successfully fulfilled 20 requests for significant changes and resubmission. Authors must use effective strategies and take peer review seriously to publish in reputable academic journals.

My approach consists of 10 simple stages.

Examine the editor's letter

• Firstly: Make sure to carefully read the message from the editor to confirm if a request has been made to alter and resubmit your manuscript.
• Secondly: Please note that the editor may offer alternative responses, including outright rejection or rejection with no invitation to resubmit.
• Thirdly: An alternative reply could be a conditional acceptance, which involves requesting minor adjustments to the manuscript.
• Lastly: Finally, the editor may also provide outright acceptance or Accept as is, where adjustments are not necessary but may still be recommended.

If you’re uncertain, you may ask the editor a question or have a coworker with more knowledge read the letter for you.

To keep track of the changes, create an Excel file

To begin with, create an Excel document and designate four columns to enumerate the revision requests made by the reviewers. To clarify, these four columns can be titled as “Reviewer,” “Suggestions,” “Response,” and “Status.” Moreover, in order to enhance readability, it is advisable to widen the columns and wrap the text, especially for the two central columns.

Take the recommendations from the editors and reviewers remarks

To enumerate the revision ideas from the reviews and record them in the Excel file, it is necessary to scrutinize the reviews meticulously. However, it might be arduous to identify all the valuable suggestions among the reviewers’ comments. In some instances, despite providing vital information, the evaluations may lack clarity. The advantage of this stage is that there is no need to revisit the reviews, as the ideas can be rephrased instead.

Improving Support for Research Methodologies and Proposal Attribution

The reviewer identifies a major limitation of this work as the insufficient backing for the research methodologies used. To address this issue, it is recommended to rephrase it in a clearer and more comprehensible manner, such as “Include a more accurate and thorough account of the data collecting in the Methods section.” Lastly, ensure to attribute each proposal to its respective source, such as Reviewer One, Reviewer Two, Reviewer Three, or the Editor.

Organize the revision ideas in a logical order

Two reviewers will often point out in various ways that your findings were reported incorrectly or that you have an insufficient literature review. It will be easier for you to tackle the rewriting process systematically if you consolidate all the feedback for the Results section into a single, more manageable category. It will be simpler to react to the reviews if all of the ideas for the Introduction, literature review, data analysis, etc. are organized.

Choose your response to each and every recommendation made by the reviewers

When responding to reviewer feedback, providing clear and actionable advice is crucial. To do this, authors can rephrase recommendations into specific actions, such as adding a paragraph to clarify how their study fits within existing literature. It is important to address all recommendations, regardless of any disagreements. If authors choose not to implement a suggestion, they must provide a justification for their decision.

Maximizing Publication Success: Approaching Reviewer Feedback with a Positive Attitude and Actionable Advice

By addressing reviewer feedback thoroughly, authors can increase their chances of publication success. Providing clear and actionable advice not only demonstrates a willingness to engage with the feedback but also shows a dedication to improving the quality of the paper. It is also essential to approach reviewer feedback with a positive attitude and consider it as an opportunity to enhance the paper’s quality, rather than a personal attack.

Developing a Plan to Effectively Respond to Reviewer Feedback and Improve Your Article

Make sure you have a strategy in place to address all comments and outline any resulting modifications to your revised article. For instance, if a reviewer suggests additional experiments to enhance your research, and you disagree, explain why you believe this step is unnecessary for your study. By providing clear and thorough justifications, you can effectively address reviewer feedback and improve your article.

Implement your revision strategy step-by-step

You may start working on the modifications one at a time now that you have outlined every proposal offered by the reviewers and have determined how you will reply. Start with the simpler ones if you are feeling intimidated. The simple ones are often little corrections to grammar or punctuation that may be made. Add a reference from your reference list as an even simpler idea.

Create the letter to the editor using your Excel file

Obviously, you shouldn’t provide the editor your Excel document. Instead, you may utilise your Excel document to create a tidy, thorough, and professionally styled letter in response to the editor. Here is an example from a letter to the editor in response: Reviewer One advised me to contextualize my research in light of the body of prior research. I’ve provided a thorough justification for the vacuum in the literature that made my research necessary.

Check twice

To be sure you haven’t missed anything, go back and read the original reviews again. Check your letter of response to the editor again after responding to each recommendation or remark to ensure that you have addressed each one and provided an explanation of how you have reacted.

Read over your writing one last time

Verify that the flow and logic of your paper have not changed even after the modifications by reading it again. Read it without considering the reviews and try to imagine yourself as a reader who hasn’t read either your original article or the reviews.

Submit your paper again

Send the response letter and the updated article to the journal editor whenever you are pleased with the modifications made. It might be demoralizing to hear significant changes that need to be made in your research paper after months of labour. Don’t let the journal’s “revise and resubmit” recommendation deter you, however. Your article has promise and can be published if the proposed modifications are made, as shown by the editor’s request that you make changes and resubmit your manuscript. The secret is to take things slowly and methodically respond to the reviewers’ remarks.

Reach out to us at www.saairatechnologies.com or give us a call at 9361223829 if you need assistance with the Journal Paper Revision of your Research.