Under the supervision of Associate Professor Dr. Sarmed H. Kathum AlKhateeb, the Dean of the College of Pharmacy-University of Baghdad….The continuing education unit at the college established a workshop under the title How to Respond to Peer Reviewer Comments? The presenter, Dr. Ali Azeez Ali, demonstrated a summary of the peer-reviewing process and how the authors can successfully address all the reviewer comments on-by-one. He also shared some of his previous responses to the reviewers of his manuscript. The following is the summary of the provided workshop with some practical tips about the topic.
The significance of journal reviewing
- Overview about peer reviewing process.
- Tips about how to respond to peer reviewer comments
- Reviewers play a pivotal role in scholarly publishing.
- The peer review system exists to 1) validate academic work, 2) help improve the quality of published research, and 3) increase networking possibilities within research communities.
- Peer review is designed to assess the 1) validity, 2) quality, and often the 3) originality of articles for publication.
- Its ultimate purpose is to maintain the integrity of science by filtering out invalid or poor quality articles.
- Practical advice for responding to reviewers’ comments
- Say thanks
- Begin by thanking the reviewer for their comments and advice.
- Summarize the revisions you made.
- Specify that you’ve addressed all of the reviewer’s concerns and summarize the changes you made.
- Make your answers easy to see.
- List all the reviewer’s comments and your answer to each one. Use a different font or color to highlight your responses.
- Avoid giving yes or no answers.
- Whenever possible, make your responses self-contained.
- Do not omit any concern raised by a reviewer.
- Respond to each comment – even if you disagree.
- Sleep on it: Waiting a day or two to respond to reviewer comments can help to create emotional distance between yourself and your work.
- Respect your reviewer’s intelligence.
- When a reviewer fails to understanda point you made, don’t assume they’re ignorant.
- If they failed to understand something you wrote, it means you’ve failed to express your idea clearly and you confused at least one reader.
- So, it’s likely the text needs editingfor clarity and logic.
- Respect your reviewer even if it means repeating yourself.
- Treat each reviewer as if they were the only one.
- Respond to each referee as if they were the only reviewer of your paper.
- Do not respond to one reviewer with “Please see our answer to comment 34 of Reviewer #2”.
- Say thanks again.
- End the letter to the reviewer with a sentence such as, “We would like to thank the referee again for taking the time to review our manuscript.
