冷静应对拒稿：如何回复审稿意见
冷静应对拒稿：如何回复审稿意见
已有 5979 次阅读2010-1-7 11:54|个⼈分类：未分类|系统分类：论⽂交流|关键词：拒稿，审稿意见，学术论⽂，英语论⽂，论⽂写作，理⽂编辑
Dr. Daneil McGowan论⽂写作系列第⼗讲——Responding to peer reviewers: dealing with rejection
Dr. Daneil McGowan 论⽂写作系列的中⽂版本终于与⼤家见⾯了，希望⼤家继续⽀持！译⽂见下⽅。
Your papers will sometimes be rejected. It is inevitable. The percentage of papers that is accepted and published without the need for any revisions is very small, and even the best scientists, writing up the best science, will face rejection from journals or the need to make revisions before their paper is considered acceptable for publication. Rather than thinking of rejection from your target journal and requests for major revisions as a negative experience, it is important to realize that this is an integral part of the publication process that exists to make your paper as robust and compl ete as possible before it joins the ‘collective knowledge’ as part of the literature.
There are many different possible reasons for rejection from a journal, and most of these have been des
cribed in previous tips in this tips series. For example, if you submitted your manuscript to an inappropriate journal it is likely you will receive a rejection letter without the paper even being sent to review. By selecting an appropriate journal (see tip on journal selection) you will increase the chances that your manuscript will be sent out for review. Similarly, a poor cover letter might result in immediate rejection without review, so submitting your manuscript with a good cover letter is essential (see tip on cover letter development). Failure to follow the instructions set out in the target journal’s Guide for Authors is another possible reason for rejection and considered insulting to the journal editors, although it is likely that you will simply receive an invitation to resubmit in the correct format. Other reasons for rejection include flawed study design, poor written language, inappropriate or incompletely explained methodology or statistical tests, incorrect description or overstatement of results, lack of balance or detail in the introduction and/or discussion, or simply a lack of novelty (for example, if your study simply repeats something that has already been done before), significance or relevance. By critically analyzing your paper prior to submission, and considering all of the items that peer reviewers will look at, you will hopefully be able to identify any problems in advance. By following the advice in the tips in this tips series, you
will speed up the process from initial submission to publication and make the stages in between consid
erably less stressful. Therefore, it is worthwhile getting your paper into the best possible form before submitting it anywhere to minimize the likelihood of rejection.
In considering peer review and how to address it, it is helpful to think about how a peer reviewer would have approached your paper. Different journals will ask different things of peer reviewers, but in general they will be checking for the following aspects of good science and scientific writing, and asked to comment whenever any of these criteria are not satisfactorily met in the submitted manuscript:
Significance
What is the importance of the findings to researchers in the field
Are the findings of general to interest to researchers in related and broader fields
Novelty
Are the claims in the paper sufficiently novel to warrant publication
Does the study represent a conceptual advance over previously published work
Introduction
Does the introduction provide sufficient background information for readers not in the immediate field to understand the problem/hypotheses?
Are the reasons for performing the study clearly definededitor版本
Are sufficient and appropriate references cited to justify the work performed
Are the study objectives clearly defined
Methods/Technical rigor
Are the methods used appropriate to the aims of the study
Is sufficient information provided for a capable researcher to reproduce the experiments described
Are any additional experiments required to validate the results of those that were performed
Are there any additional experiments that would greatly enhance the quality of this paper
Are appropriate references cited where previously established methods are used
Results/Statistics
Are the results clearly explained and presented in an appropriate format
Do the figures and tables show essential data or are there any that could easily be summarized in the text
Is any of the data duplicated in the graphics and/or text
Are the figures and tables easy to interpret
Are there any additional graphics that would add clarity to the text
Have appropriate statistical methods been used to test the significance of the results
Discussion
Are all possible interpretations of the data considered or are there alternative hypotheses that are consistent with the available data?
Are the findings properly described in the context of the published literature
Are appropriate references cited in meeting the above criterion
Are the limitations of the study discussed
Conclusion
Are the conclusions of the study supported by appropriate evidence or are the claims exaggerated
Are the significance/applicability/implications of the findings clearly discussed
Literature cited
Is the literature cited balanced or are there important studies not cited, or other studies disproportionately cited
Journal selection
Is the target journal appropriate
Language
Is the manuscript clearly written so as to be understandable by researchers not in the immediate field
When you receive a letter of rejection and peer review reports from the journal editor it is important that you carefully study all of the comments (from the editor as well as the reviewers), address these in your manuscript as appropriate, and prepare a detailed response. It is usual to return a revised manuscript and response letter (it is also acceptable to separate the cover letter and responses into different files), and these normally need to be returned within a set period of time or the revised manuscript will be considered as a new submission. It is essential that you respond to all of the points made by the editor and/or reviewers, even if you disagree with them. If you do disagree with a point that has been made, you should provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal. This might take the form of a reference to a particular paper that supports your statement (such a paper might need to be added to the reference list of your manuscript if it isn’t already cited), an explanation of why an experiment was performed in a particular way, or an explanation of why you didn’t perform additional experiments recommended by the reviewer. Whatever you do, do not ignore or overlook comments, because this will only lead to delays. Your paper will not be published until all comments are appropriately addressed.
The best format for a response letter is to paste in the comments made by the editor and reviewers and write your response beneath each comment. Use different font styles (for example, normal and ital
ics) to differentiate comments from responses. When referring to changes in the text provide the page and line numbers so that these changes can quickly be identified.
Copy the new or modified text into the letter so it is immediately clear how your changes address the comment. It is also usual to distinguish major changes in the text in some way, for example, with yellow highlight and/or underline and strikethrough fonts, to make them easy to identify. Finally, if additional analyses or experiments are required to satisfy the editor or reviewers, you should perform them and add the data to your manuscript; these serve to make the final paper stronger and will increase the chances of eventual publication.
Example
Checklist
1.Don’t take rejection personally; the object is to make your paper
stronger and more reliable
2.Address all points raised by the editor and/or reviewers by revising
the manuscript and showing the changes in your letter
3.Perform any additional experiments or analyses requested unless you
feel that they would not add to the strength of your paper (in which case you should provide a rebuttal)
4.Provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal to any points
or comments you disagree with
5.Differentiate comments and responses in the letter file by using
different font styles
6.Identify major revisions in the text, made in response to peer
review comments, with highlight, underline and strikethrough fonts
7.Return the revised manuscript and response letter within the
requested time period to avoid your paper being treated as a new submission

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