A guide to help you revise your paper and get the most out of the peer-review process
I’m an associate editor for a journal and have my own experience as a first-author and co-author on a number of papers. Here is my advice on how to revise a paper. It’s not guaranteed that this will get your paper accepted, but it will definitely smooth the process and will hopefully save you from further rounds of revision.
- Take a breath
Doing research and writing papers is hard. You spent months or even years labouring over this paper and now you get an unfavourable review. You may be raging against the reviewer who failed to get the point of your paper or you’re crushed by the amount of work required to revise your work. So, just take a breath. Let it sit for a day. You don’t have to start immediately. It’s much better to approach the revision systematically and with a calm mind. When you are ready, list all the reviewers’ comments. I usually create a task paper, i.e. I copy each reviewer comment and create checkboxes with the steps I need to take to address that comment.
2. Don’t rush, don’t dawdle
Academic publishing is not known for being a fast-paced industry. However, you can err on both sides with the time you’re taking to revise your manuscript. Don’t rush a revision, if you can’t do it…