Critique Is Not Criticism: Dealing With Peer Reviewers’ Comments on Your Paper

#1 What to do when you first get comments back

The first thing to do when you get comments back is take a minute to breathe. Your gut reaction can be to reject all the comments and perceive them to be negative. Take time to read through the comments and try to understand what the reviewer is saying. They might have a good suggestion for a reference you missed, a statistic you could add or a section that needs expanding. If their feedback suggests they haven’t understood something, it may be that you need to rethink how you’ve worded your explanation. It might not have been as clear as you thought! Slowly read through the comments and make a note of ones that are simple corrections, those that need more thought/ discussion, and those that are visual or structural changes. This can help you tackle the edits constructively.

#2 Editing your article with reviewer comments

After taking some time to review the comments, you can start editing your manuscript. I always start with the small corrections; these are often changing up certain terms, adding references or rewording a sentence. This gives you some small wins early on. Edit your paper with tracked changes as this means all the authors, and reviewers, can see the changes clearly.

The bigger comments take more time. Consider having a discussion with your supervisor, before tackling these changes, to make a plan of what the new manuscript will look like.

It’s also important to remember that you can disagree with the reviewers and you don’t have to make all the changes they suggest. You need to have a justification for this, which you can explain in your response (I talk about that further on). I found this really daunting when publishing my first paper but remember that the reviewers are researchers just like you; they are entitled to their opinion but you know the intricate details of your work. So if there is a comment that doesn’t make sense to you, it is ok to explain why you disagree.

#3 Writing a response to reviewers

The easiest way to do this is to copy out the reviewer comments into a Word document and write your response to each individual comment; this could be evidence of the change you have made (including the line number) or your explanation of why you have not made the suggested change. This is a key document as it will be read by the editor to help them decide whether to accept your manuscript, send it out for a second round of peer review or reject your manuscript. Make it clear why you have or haven’t made changes and that you are grateful for the comments you received. Researchers have taken time to try and make your article better, even if it doesn’t immediately feel that way!

Whilst the peer review process can feel daunting, it is paramount to ensuring the quality of published scientific work. In my experience the comments I received have been helpful, both in challenging me to explain my thought process more clearly and to improve the overall readability of my work. Having some breathing space to remove your emotional reaction to the comments is key to seeing them positively and making them work for you. Remember it is all worth it to see your name in print! You will get there!

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