【交流】Nature Reviews Neuroscience 前任编辑 Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第十讲：如何回复审稿意见?

Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第十讲

Responding to peer reviewers: dealing with rejection


冷静应对拒稿：如何回复审稿意见

Dr. Daniel McGowan
分子神经科学博士


Dr. Daniel McGowan曾任 Nature Reviews Neuroscience 副编辑，负责约稿，管理和撰写期刊内容。于2006年加入理文编辑（Edanz Group） 并从2008年起担任学术总监。Dr. McGowan有超过十年的博士后和研究生阶段实验室研究经验，主要致力于神经退化疾病、分子及细胞生物学、蛋白质生物化学、蛋白质组学和基因组学。

精彩回顾

第一期：Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第一讲： “How to write a world class paper”（标题练习）

第二期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第二讲：“摘要和关键词（附PPT和在线修改）”

第三期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第三讲：“cover letter的练习”

第四期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第四讲：“Nature Reviews Neuroscience 前任编辑帮您修改语言问题”

第五期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第五讲：“如何做好研究设计和预先规划工作。 ”

第六期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第六讲：“如何选择合适的目标期刊？”

第七期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第七讲：“如何撰写规范的IMRaD格式？”

第八期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第八讲：“如何完成一个出色的论文图表？”

第九期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第九讲：“让统计学告诉你的结果意味着什么？”

第十期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第十讲：“如何回复审稿意见? ”

第十一期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第十一讲：“科研伦理和论文发表道德”

第十二期： Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第十二讲：“投稿，最后检查”

编者按：在本帖中，理文编辑学术总监Dr. Daniel McGowan将向大家展示:“如何回复审稿意见 冷静应对拒稿”



冷静应对拒稿：如何回复审稿意见
Dr. McGowan论文写作系列第十讲 — Responding to peer reviewers: dealing with rejection




There are many different possible reasons for rejection from a journal, and most of these have been described 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 considerably 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 defined?
• 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 italics) 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

现在，大家来看以下的例子：

Checklist 备忘录
　　　
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

请大家注意，尽管理文编辑（Edanz Group）设在中国，Dr. McGowan的母语是英语，因此请各位尽量使用英语交流，这也是一个很好的锻炼机会！

更多精彩内容请下载完整的“Writing for Success”系列培训材料。