Writing for Publication: Part 8
Office of Graduate Studies
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12/22/2016
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Part 8 of a 8-part Writing for Publication workshop presented by Dr. Brian Waters
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- [00:00:02.472]So those are the four options.
- [00:00:04.645]The authors will learn what happens
- [00:00:07.749]and then they need to respond to the decision
- [00:00:11.508]and the reviewers' reports.
- [00:00:15.205]How do you deal effectively with the reviewers' reports?
- [00:00:19.495]You're going to get back a list of comments
- [00:00:22.220]from the reviewers.
- [00:00:24.281]In my field it's typically two reviewers.
- [00:00:26.517]I've had up to four reviewers before.
- [00:00:33.434]As you're waiting for a decision,
- [00:00:36.397]for fast journals it might be a month,
- [00:00:38.773]for slower journals it might be four or five, six months,
- [00:00:43.425]be preparing to make revisions,
- [00:00:45.352]because you almost always have to make revisions.
- [00:00:49.027]It's extremely rare for a paper to be immediately accepted.
- [00:00:54.969]Minor revisions are, I consider the best case scenario.
- [00:01:00.043]Major revisions are not too bad.
- [00:01:03.155]Reject is not that great. (laughs)
- [00:01:06.662]But it's not the end of the world.
- [00:01:08.624]So be prepared to make revisions or to submit your work
- [00:01:11.925]to another journal if you get rejected.
- [00:01:17.483]It's kind of tempting to think, "Well who wrote this review?
- [00:01:22.727]"Based on what they said I think it's probably
- [00:01:24.794]"this person in the field."
- [00:01:26.824]But you never know, and it's just really
- [00:01:28.970]not worth your time to try to think about that.
- [00:01:34.895]How do you respond depending on the decision?
- [00:01:37.382]If the paper is accepted, that's great.
- [00:01:42.521]Like I have said before, it is pretty rare
- [00:01:45.997]for that to happen on the first try.
- [00:01:50.874]If it's accepted after revisions,
- [00:01:52.894]then you go ahead and acknowledge the editor.
- [00:01:56.249]If they're asking for corrections, go ahead and make those.
- [00:02:00.337]Then you'll return the corrected version
- [00:02:02.654]to the editor by the date.
- [00:02:04.670]They'll tell you, "You must have it back within four weeks,"
- [00:02:07.702]or whatever the case is for that journal.
- [00:02:10.482]So you send it back, and then,
- [00:02:15.279]they'll eventually send you galley proofs
- [00:02:17.208]that you go through and make sure
- [00:02:18.484]everything is formatted correctly.
- [00:02:23.488]If it's accepted pending revision,
- [00:02:26.199]this is, could be acceptable with minor revisions.
- [00:02:30.243]Then if you agree with what the reviewers
- [00:02:33.661]are asking you to change, go ahead and make those changes,
- [00:02:38.049]and all of the co-authors should approve
- [00:02:41.285]of all of these changes.
- [00:02:43.137]And then when you resubmit,
- [00:02:45.229]you still need another cover letter.
- [00:02:47.317]This one is not as big of a deal
- [00:02:50.029]because they've already reviewed it.
- [00:02:51.660]Just say, "Thank you for your review.
- [00:02:54.961]"Here's our resubmitted, here's our revised manuscript."
- [00:03:00.027]You need a cover letter, you need the revised version,
- [00:03:03.886]and be aware of what your journal wants.
- [00:03:06.791]Some journals want a track changes version
- [00:03:09.627]and a clean version.
- [00:03:11.185]Some just want a clean version.
- [00:03:15.673]And you should have list of what changes you made
- [00:03:18.660]in response to the reviewers' comments.
- [00:03:23.418]If they require you to do further experiments,
- [00:03:27.228]take those seriously.
- [00:03:28.514]Do that work thoroughly.
- [00:03:30.125]Don't just rush through it so that you can
- [00:03:32.984]address the comments and get it published,
- [00:03:36.401]because that's going to stand over time
- [00:03:38.815]as part of the paper, so do those thoroughly.
- [00:03:41.702]Make sure they're done correctly.
- [00:03:46.027]Now if your paper is rejected, this happens to everyone.
- [00:03:51.344]It's not something to be ashamed of.
- [00:03:56.612]Well over 50% of the papers are rejected the first time.
- [00:04:01.767]It happens to everyone and sometimes it's for the better.
- [00:04:05.902]Sometimes you missed something important,
- [00:04:08.099]the reviewers catch it, you get rejected,
- [00:04:11.305]and you write a better paper afterwards.
- [00:04:14.067]So rejection can be a good thing for you.
- [00:04:18.747]The peer review process is powerful.
- [00:04:21.947]So if you're rejected, take a break,
- [00:04:25.559]don't stress out too much, and then go back to work
- [00:04:29.463]and make a revised version.
- [00:04:32.014]Take those reviewers' comments,
- [00:04:33.596]use them to make the paper better, and then resubmit it.
- [00:04:37.307]Follow the suggestions of the reviewers.
- [00:04:40.947]Don't get mad and call or email the editor.
- [00:04:44.436]That won't do you any good in your field.
- [00:04:46.809]You don't want to make enemies.
- [00:04:48.744]And it's not their fault.
- [00:04:51.298]You just have to accept that.
- [00:04:55.547]But do read the rejection letter carefully.
- [00:04:58.571]Some rejections are just completely no,
- [00:05:02.438]we're not going to publish it, ever.
- [00:05:05.763]And some of them are asking you to revise it and resubmit.
- [00:05:10.650]Sometimes you really can't tell very easily
- [00:05:13.970]which one they're suggesting, so read it very carefully.
- [00:05:18.386]See if they're asking you to resubmit or not.
- [00:05:21.870]Sometimes they don't come right out and say that.
- [00:05:25.695]What were the reasons that it was rejected?
- [00:05:28.613]Was it outside the scope of the journal?
- [00:05:31.461]Okay, that one's easy.
- [00:05:33.449]Revise it, submit it to another journal
- [00:05:36.640]that's more appropriate.
- [00:05:38.302]If it's too long and it needs a lot of changes,
- [00:05:41.912]you can revise and resubmit,
- [00:05:43.977]or you can revise and submit to another journal.
- [00:05:46.998]If there are serious flaws in the paper,
- [00:05:49.592]or the evidence is incomplete,
- [00:05:51.828]then you need to do more work,
- [00:05:54.430]and the reviewers have done you a favor probably
- [00:05:57.223]by helping you write a better paper.
- [00:06:00.659]And sometimes, not very often,
- [00:06:03.304]usually the reviewers are right,
- [00:06:04.832]but sometimes they just make a mistake
- [00:06:07.852]and they've interpreted something incorrectly.
- [00:06:11.375]Usually if that's happening
- [00:06:12.954]that's because you didn't write it very clearly,
- [00:06:15.613]so consider that.
- [00:06:18.171]Rewrite it to make it more clear
- [00:06:20.258]and say, respectfully, the reviewers made a mistake
- [00:06:24.161]because they misunderstood this part of my paper.
- [00:06:29.550]Okay, so that's for rejection.
- [00:06:33.343]When you're going to resubmit,
- [00:06:34.861]either after minor or major revisions,
- [00:06:39.558]what you'll do is write a letter
- [00:06:42.778]and this letter should include the responses
- [00:06:46.046]to the comments phrased by the reviewers,
- [00:06:48.376]or sometimes the editor is also a reviewer of your paper.
- [00:06:52.453]They'll have a list of comments.
- [00:06:54.975]And so you write a brief letter saying,
- [00:06:58.246]"Thank you for your review.
- [00:07:00.196]"Here's how we responded to all of your comments."
- [00:07:03.010]And so you list those comments one by one.
- [00:07:05.826]This was the first comment of the reviewer.
- [00:07:09.013]The reviewer says, "On page three line 37,
- [00:07:12.858]"the GenBank accession numbers should be matched
- [00:07:15.077]"with the isolate designation in Table 2."
- [00:07:18.256]So the response to that is, "We have revised
- [00:07:21.010]"the designation of the GenBank accession numbers
- [00:07:23.269]"in the table in the manuscript.
- [00:07:25.294]"Please refer to Table 2."
- [00:07:27.036]It can be that simple.
- [00:07:28.605]You just say, "This is what we did.
- [00:07:31.356]"We changed it to match your suggestion."
- [00:07:36.103]Then there's comment number two, comment number three,
- [00:07:39.189]comment number four.
- [00:07:40.520]You need to address all of those comments.
- [00:07:47.105]Okay so,
- [00:07:49.034]we have covered the early parts of this process.
- [00:07:53.938]We've covered the submission and revision
- [00:07:55.693]parts of this process.
- [00:07:56.964]We've talked about publishing.
- [00:07:59.516]And so we're at the end of the workshop now.
- [00:08:02.642]I'd like to open it up for questions at this point.
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