Using Reviewer Feedback
When the peer reviewers are finished, you will receive a copy of their feedback from the editor. Many peer reviewers will submit a narrative or list of comments and questions; some may submit a marked-up copy of the manuscript with their comments tracked in the margins. You may also receive additional comments from the editor or a broad summary of the key issues that need to be addressed in revision. Visit the F1000 Research webpage below to read examples of real peer reviewer comments, both constructively critical and complimentary:
“Peer Review Examples”
Even in a predominately positive review, you are likely to find a few critical comments, and some of them may sting. For example, perhaps you were very proud of a specific paragraph you crafted offering insightful commentary on libraries, and it felt important to you, but the reviewer says it feels disconnected from the rest of the paper. Perhaps the reviewer complained about your word choice, but you are fond of your diction. In any case, it’s a good idea to read through the comments once without planning to address them yet. Allow yourself to experience whatever feelings they inspire, positive and negative, and then set the comments aside and take time to clear your mind.
A few hours or even a day or two later, read the comments again, and remind yourself that the reviewers are critiquing one piece of your writing, not you as a person. Pretend you are reading feedback about someone else’s writing, keep an open mind, and challenge yourself to see whether they might have a valid point. For example, you were proud of that paragraph that shared insightful commentary — but it is a bit of a tangent that truthfully doesn’t fit well in this specific paper. Maybe you can copy and paste it into a new file to inspire another project. Maybe you can add more variety to your transitions and simplify your language for clarity. If you find you can agree with some critiques during your open-minded reading, then those may be good places to begin your revisions.
Along with your revisions, you will be asked to submit a summary of how you have addressed the reviewer’s comments. Therefore, after you have had time to read, re-read, and consider the feedback, you’ll want to create a file to keep your revisions organized. Review Mark Lenker’s Librarian Parlor post, “Responding to Reviewer Comments.” In it, Lenker demonstrates how he created a spreadsheet of comments and how he wanted to respond to them. Use the 5.1.6: Using Reviewer Feedback template in your LPOL Workbook if you need to respond to reviewer comments about your own submission. Distill the feedback into “suggested actions;” these may include an area of weakness that has been identified, a recommendation for something to reword or remove, criticism of an unsupported conclusion The end of a research article that wraps up the work presented. A conclusion can also be a spot to discuss limitations of the research or future avenues for this line of research., and similar issues. Paste these suggested actions in the second column of your spreadsheet or table, one per row; in the first column, indicate which reviewer it came from. Reviewers are most often identified by numbers or letters: Reviewers 1 and 2, or Reviewers A and B.
After you have organized all the suggested actions into the table, reorganize the rows into an order that is more logical for you to address. For instance, you may group all comments about the Introduction The start of a research article providing background information and an overview of the research presented in the article. together so that you can see how they relate, then group comments for each subsequent section of the paper. Alternatively, you may prefer to group the quick, simple changes at the top and work your way down to the more complicated suggestions. Now, review the complete list again and look for anything that doesn’t make sense to you. If one reviewer’s comment is unclear, or if two reviewers have provided contradictory recommendations, you should contact the editor to request clarification. Part of their job is to reconcile these issues; they should indicate which of the two contradictory perspectives they support, and they will do their best to clarify a confusing comment or advise you to ignore it.
Here are some ways to tackle the suggestions systematically:
- Create a new copy of your manuscript for revisions so that you can always go back and reference your original submission.
- Go step by step, determining the best way to incorporate the feedback and strengthen your paper.
- As you make changes in your manuscript to address the comments you agree with, use the third column in your table to summarize what you changed.
- You can use the fourth column as a progress-tracking tool for yourself; mark when a particular revision is in progress, what, if any, external factor you might be waiting on (such as a clarification from the editor), and then mark when you have completed it.
What to do when you don’t agree with reviewer feedback
You may one day encounter reviewer feedback that you don’t agree with. Sometimes the suggestion simply isn’t in line with your work — maybe the reviewer has proposed a data comparison that’s disconnected from your research question, or they have asked why you didn’t consider an entirely different method or question. The reviewer wishes to see another paper that is not the paper you set out to write. In other cases, the reviewer may have a different stylistic perspective that you don’t support; for example, you may disagree about how things should be worded or organized. At times, they may simply be wrong; for example they may suggest a statistical measurement that doesn’t make sense with your data or criticize a “weak” conclusion that you feel is well-supported. At these moments, remember that a peer reviewer is not always right, and you are not obligated to make every change they suggest!
In these circumstances, the key is to explain your position clearly and politely to the editor. Rather than describing a change made in the third column of your revisions table, enter your response to the reviewer’s comment. Respectfully acknowledge the reviewer’s position, engage with their argument if applicable, and then explain why you disagree with their opinion or decline to make the changes they recommend. Always write with the assumption that both the editor and the reviewer will read your response. Avoid complicating future interactions with a rude or careless response to a well-intentioned comment.
Read a sample response to reviewers from APA Style below:
“Response to Reviewers”
That being said, let’s address the elephant in the room — not all reviewer comments are well-intentioned or respectful. We may encounter a reviewer who simply will not remain empathetic and constructive in their review. Perhaps they are biased against our topic or hypothesis from the beginning, or perhaps their internal bias reacts to something they presume about our identities, whether due to the geographical context of our research, a marginalized population that our research centers upon, a regional dialect of language that comes through in our writing, or some other factor.
You may receive advice to “brush off” comments that aren’t constructive, and that is partially good advice, in the sense that you should leave behind suggestions that are not helpful and should not take reviewer feedback personally. However, if you perceive that a reviewer’s comments reflect racism, prejudice of another form, or any sort of bias that might unfairly disadvantage your work, don’t just brush that off — consider reporting it to the editor handling your submission. The editor should be screening reviewer comments for acceptability; guidelines from the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) state they may edit those which are unacceptable in tone, language, or content, according to the journal’s guidelines, or they may report comments in full but include their own opinions regarding the value and validity of those statements and to what extent the author should heed or ignore them in revisions.
If the editor has overlooked something, such as inappropriate tone or language, your report may help increase their awareness and sharpen their attention. It may also create an opportunity for dialogue among the journal’s editors to determine whether this was an individual issue or a systemic problem and whether the journal ought to rethink aspects of its processes and policies.
One final note about incorporating and responding to feedback: be wary of what are called coercive citation practices. This entails an editor instructing you to add more citations to articles from their journal. This sometimes happens because an editor is seeking to boost the journal’s citation-based metrics (such as the Journal Impact Factor A measure used to show the average amount of times an article within a certain journal has been cited within a period of time. This factor can be used by a discipline to determine the importance or status of a journal.). Early career researchers may be targeted more often because they are perceived as being “less likely to question or resist an editor’s wishes” (Wilhite and Fong 2012). If a reviewer or editor suggests that you engage with a genuinely relevant article, and you agree it should be reflected in your references, that’s fine — you can add it. But if the editor simply seems to be aiming for a quota of citations back to the journal, be cautious. In your table of responses, include a polite explanation that you don’t believe this adds value to your work. If the editor insists on the citation(s) as a criterion for publication, you may want to consider withdrawing your paper and contacting a different journal.
For now, let’s assume that you have avoided uncomfortable or hostile reviews. Your tracking table indicates that you have finished addressing all the suggested actions. Take a moment to read through your new draft from beginning to end (maybe even reading out loud), with an emphasis on noting any areas that feel disjointed or where the ideas don’t flow together — sometimes revising details throughout the paper can create such “bumps” in the narrative. If you have reorganized content, make sure that content still observes any required sequence. For example, acronyms are spelled out on their first use, but has the first use changed with the restructuring? Furthermore, double-check that citations and footnotes don’t need any further tweaks. Reread the editor’s letter and verify whether you are completing all the steps for your resubmission; in particular, if the paper will undergo another round of peer review, ensure that the file content and properties are both still anonymized.
Now take a deep breath, and… resubmit your revision!
Topic 6 References
Clement, Kristina, Peter, Samantha, and Hilary Baribeau,. “Through the Looking Glass: Experiencing the Other Side of Academic Publishing. A Librarian Parlor Series, Part 2.” The Librarian Parlor. June 2, 2020. https://libparlor.com/2020/06/02/through-the-looking-glass-experiencing-the-other-side-of-academic-publishing-a-librarian-parlor-series-part-2/.
Golash-Boza, Tanya Maria. “Ten Steps to a Successful Revision.” Get a Life, PhD (blog). March 19, 2011. http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-respond-to-revise-and-resubmit.html.
Hosier, Allison. “A Look Behind the Curtain: What I Learned as a Peer Reviewer about Dealing with Disagreement and Respectful Conversations.” The Librarian Parlor. November 5, 2019. https://libparlor.com/2019/11/05/a-look-behind-the-curtain/.
“How to Receive and Respond to Peer Review Feedback.” PLOS. N.d. https://plos.org/resource/how-to-receive-and-respond-to-peer-review-feedback/.
Lenker, Mark. “Responding to Reviewer Comments.” The Librarian Parlor. January 24, 2018. https://libparlor.com/2018/01/24/responding-to-reviewer-comments/.
Parletta, Natalie. “How to Respond to Difficult or Negative Peer-Reviewer Feedback.” Nature Index. May 18, 2021. https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/how-to-respond-difficult-negative-peer-reviewer-feedback.
Seeber, Kevin. “Getting Around the Gates.” The Librarian Parlor. August 30, 2017. https://libparlor.com/2017/08/30/getting-around-the-gates/.
Wilhite, Allen W., and Eric A. Fong. “Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing.” Science 335, no. 6068 (2012): 542-543. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1212540.
Using Reviewer Feedback
When the peer reviewers are finished, you will receive a copy of their feedback from the editor. Many peer reviewers will submit a narrative or list of comments and questions; some may submit a marked-up copy of the manuscript with their comments tracked in the margins. You may also receive additional comments from the editor or a broad summary of the key issues that need to be addressed in revision. Visit the F1000 Research webpage below to read examples of real peer reviewer comments, both constructively critical and complimentary:
“Peer Review Examples”
Even in a predominately positive review, you are likely to find a few critical comments, and some of them may sting. For example, perhaps you were very proud of a specific paragraph you crafted offering insightful commentary on libraries, and it felt important to you, but the reviewer says it feels disconnected from the rest of the paper. Perhaps the reviewer complained about your word choice, but you are fond of your diction. In any case, it’s a good idea to read through the comments once without planning to address them yet. Allow yourself to experience whatever feelings they inspire, positive and negative, and then set the comments aside and take time to clear your mind.
A few hours or even a day or two later, read the comments again, and remind yourself that the reviewers are critiquing one piece of your writing, not you as a person. Pretend you are reading feedback about someone else’s writing, keep an open mind, and challenge yourself to see whether they might have a valid point. For example, you were proud of that paragraph that shared insightful commentary — but it is a bit of a tangent that truthfully doesn’t fit well in this specific paper. Maybe you can copy and paste it into a new file to inspire another project. Maybe you can add more variety to your transitions and simplify your language for clarity. If you find you can agree with some critiques during your open-minded reading, then those may be good places to begin your revisions.
Along with your revisions, you will be asked to submit a summary of how you have addressed the reviewer’s comments. Therefore, after you have had time to read, re-read, and consider the feedback, you’ll want to create a file to keep your revisions organized. Review Mark Lenker’s Librarian Parlor post, “Responding to Reviewer Comments.” In it, Lenker demonstrates how he created a spreadsheet of comments and how he wanted to respond to them. Use the 5.1.6: Using Reviewer Feedback template in your LPOL Workbook if you need to respond to reviewer comments about your own submission. Distill the feedback into “suggested actions;” these may include an area of weakness that has been identified, a recommendation for something to reword or remove, criticism of an unsupported conclusionConclusion The end of a research article that wraps up the work presented. A conclusion can also be a spot to discuss limitations of the research or future avenues for this line of research., and similar issues. Paste these suggested actions in the second column of your spreadsheet or table, one per row; in the first column, indicate which reviewer it came from. Reviewers are most often identified by numbers or letters: Reviewers 1 and 2, or Reviewers A and B.
After you have organized all the suggested actions into the table, reorganize the rows into an order that is more logical for you to address. For instance, you may group all comments about the IntroductionIntroduction The start of a research article providing background information and an overview of the research presented in the article. together so that you can see how they relate, then group comments for each subsequent section of the paper. Alternatively, you may prefer to group the quick, simple changes at the top and work your way down to the more complicated suggestions. Now, review the complete list again and look for anything that doesn’t make sense to you. If one reviewer’s comment is unclear, or if two reviewers have provided contradictory recommendations, you should contact the editor to request clarification. Part of their job is to reconcile these issues; they should indicate which of the two contradictory perspectives they support, and they will do their best to clarify a confusing comment or advise you to ignore it.
Here are some ways to tackle the suggestions systematically:
What to do when you don’t agree with reviewer feedback
You may one day encounter reviewer feedback that you don’t agree with. Sometimes the suggestion simply isn’t in line with your work — maybe the reviewer has proposed a data comparison that’s disconnected from your research question, or they have asked why you didn’t consider an entirely different method or question. The reviewer wishes to see another paper that is not the paper you set out to write. In other cases, the reviewer may have a different stylistic perspective that you don’t support; for example, you may disagree about how things should be worded or organized. At times, they may simply be wrong; for example they may suggest a statistical measurement that doesn’t make sense with your data or criticize a “weak” conclusion that you feel is well-supported. At these moments, remember that a peer reviewer is not always right, and you are not obligated to make every change they suggest!
In these circumstances, the key is to explain your position clearly and politely to the editor. Rather than describing a change made in the third column of your revisions table, enter your response to the reviewer’s comment. Respectfully acknowledge the reviewer’s position, engage with their argument if applicable, and then explain why you disagree with their opinion or decline to make the changes they recommend. Always write with the assumption that both the editor and the reviewer will read your response. Avoid complicating future interactions with a rude or careless response to a well-intentioned comment.
Read a sample response to reviewers from APA Style below:
“Response to Reviewers”
That being said, let’s address the elephant in the room — not all reviewer comments are well-intentioned or respectful. We may encounter a reviewer who simply will not remain empathetic and constructive in their review. Perhaps they are biased against our topic or hypothesis from the beginning, or perhaps their internal bias reacts to something they presume about our identities, whether due to the geographical context of our research, a marginalized population that our research centers upon, a regional dialect of language that comes through in our writing, or some other factor.
You may receive advice to “brush off” comments that aren’t constructive, and that is partially good advice, in the sense that you should leave behind suggestions that are not helpful and should not take reviewer feedback personally. However, if you perceive that a reviewer’s comments reflect racism, prejudice of another form, or any sort of bias that might unfairly disadvantage your work, don’t just brush that off — consider reporting it to the editor handling your submission. The editor should be screening reviewer comments for acceptability; guidelines from the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) state they may edit those which are unacceptable in tone, language, or content, according to the journal’s guidelines, or they may report comments in full but include their own opinions regarding the value and validity of those statements and to what extent the author should heed or ignore them in revisions.
If the editor has overlooked something, such as inappropriate tone or language, your report may help increase their awareness and sharpen their attention. It may also create an opportunity for dialogue among the journal’s editors to determine whether this was an individual issue or a systemic problem and whether the journal ought to rethink aspects of its processes and policies.
One final note about incorporating and responding to feedback: be wary of what are called coercive citation practices. This entails an editor instructing you to add more citations to articles from their journal. This sometimes happens because an editor is seeking to boost the journal’s citation-based metrics (such as the Journal Impact FactorJournal Impact Factor A measure used to show the average amount of times an article within a certain journal has been cited within a period of time. This factor can be used by a discipline to determine the importance or status of a journal.). Early career researchers may be targeted more often because they are perceived as being “less likely to question or resist an editor’s wishes” (Wilhite and Fong 2012). If a reviewer or editor suggests that you engage with a genuinely relevant article, and you agree it should be reflected in your references, that’s fine — you can add it. But if the editor simply seems to be aiming for a quota of citations back to the journal, be cautious. In your table of responses, include a polite explanation that you don’t believe this adds value to your work. If the editor insists on the citation(s) as a criterion for publication, you may want to consider withdrawing your paper and contacting a different journal.
For now, let’s assume that you have avoided uncomfortable or hostile reviews. Your tracking table indicates that you have finished addressing all the suggested actions. Take a moment to read through your new draft from beginning to end (maybe even reading out loud), with an emphasis on noting any areas that feel disjointed or where the ideas don’t flow together — sometimes revising details throughout the paper can create such “bumps” in the narrative. If you have reorganized content, make sure that content still observes any required sequence. For example, acronyms are spelled out on their first use, but has the first use changed with the restructuring? Furthermore, double-check that citations and footnotes don’t need any further tweaks. Reread the editor’s letter and verify whether you are completing all the steps for your resubmission; in particular, if the paper will undergo another round of peer review, ensure that the file content and properties are both still anonymized.
Now take a deep breath, and… resubmit your revision!
Topic 6 References
Clement, Kristina, Peter, Samantha, and Hilary Baribeau,. “Through the Looking Glass: Experiencing the Other Side of Academic Publishing. A Librarian Parlor Series, Part 2.” The Librarian Parlor. June 2, 2020. https://libparlor.com/2020/06/02/through-the-looking-glass-experiencing-the-other-side-of-academic-publishing-a-librarian-parlor-series-part-2/.
Golash-Boza, Tanya Maria. “Ten Steps to a Successful Revision.” Get a Life, PhD (blog). March 19, 2011. http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-respond-to-revise-and-resubmit.html.
Hosier, Allison. “A Look Behind the Curtain: What I Learned as a Peer Reviewer about Dealing with Disagreement and Respectful Conversations.” The Librarian Parlor. November 5, 2019. https://libparlor.com/2019/11/05/a-look-behind-the-curtain/.
“How to Receive and Respond to Peer Review Feedback.” PLOS. N.d. https://plos.org/resource/how-to-receive-and-respond-to-peer-review-feedback/.
Lenker, Mark. “Responding to Reviewer Comments.” The Librarian Parlor. January 24, 2018. https://libparlor.com/2018/01/24/responding-to-reviewer-comments/.
Parletta, Natalie. “How to Respond to Difficult or Negative Peer-Reviewer Feedback.” Nature Index. May 18, 2021. https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/how-to-respond-difficult-negative-peer-reviewer-feedback.
Seeber, Kevin. “Getting Around the Gates.” The Librarian Parlor. August 30, 2017. https://libparlor.com/2017/08/30/getting-around-the-gates/.
Wilhite, Allen W., and Eric A. Fong. “Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing.” Science 335, no. 6068 (2012): 542-543. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1212540.