Read on Twitter
Since I'm working on this at the moment, a short 'advice thread' for dealing with peer review at the R&R stage. So: what do you do when dealing with a 'major revise and resubmit'? 1/n
My approach might not work for everyone, but I've sharpened it over the years, and am happy to say that once I've gotten an 'R & R' response from a journal, the paper has always ended up accepted for publication. 2/n
STEP ONE: go through the peer review reports slowly and carefully, and assign each separate actionable item its own number.
STEP TWO: consolidate any overlapping suggestions between reviewers, and decide which suggestions to a) implement or b) dispense with/rebut. 3/n
STEP TWO: consolidate any overlapping suggestions between reviewers, and decide which suggestions to a) implement or b) dispense with/rebut. 3/n
STEP THREE: in the context of major revisions, you're likely to feel overwhelmed by all the comments. THIS is why you've assigned actionable items a number. Focus on each revision one at a time. Start ticking them off as you do them! 4/n
STEP FOUR: when the hard work of revising the paper is completed, you need to write a good 'response letter'. Sometimes this will just be for the editor's benefit, but sometimes it will also be sent to the reviewers... 5/n
Either way, the response letter is crucial. In some cases it may be even more important than the revisions themselves, because it might convince the editor that you've done an adequate job or that certain suggestions are impractical/inappropriate. 6/n
Regardless, you want to be clear about a) what changes you've made, b) what suggestions you haven't done and why ('this is beyond the focus of the paper', 'I already did this on page 6 so I've repeated it in the conclusion', etc.) 7/n
At the outset of your letter you want to make sure you've thanked the reviewers, and (briefly) summarize the positive things they've said, and described their main suggestions to be clear you understood them. 8/n
BUT, you might also be in a situation where you think one of the reviewers is just totally wrong about something. Be diplomatic, but *it's okay to be firm and spell out why you disagree*. 9/n
So long as you make a clear and concerted good faith effort to make revisions, it's okay to reject specific suggestions. If you can articulate why, you might convince either the reviewer or (more importantly) the editor that you're right. 10/10
