How are you doing this week? Are you ready to get some shit done? Let’s do this !
A reminder that it is AcWriMo and I’m getting shit done with that as best I can. Here’s my goal list that I’m updating as I go if anyone wants to follow along.
Welcome to the next installment in the series*: How Mirya Does Things
*is it a series if there are two? IDK. Maybe this will be a thing! If you want more of this, you could fill out this survey and tell me “I want to know how you do X thing!” and X could be anything! How Mirya… (I honestly don’t have any idea what y’all want to know about. Fill out the dang survey !)
Here’s a missive that I had already kind of drafted and then someone asked for “ effective strategies/ methodologies for revising papers for publication ” and BOOM here we are my bebes!
Let’s talk about how I write a memo to the editors and reviewers when I’ve been given an R&R.
So – the email comes from the journal… “while we found much to like about the manuscript…” (GO ON) blah blah your work is terrible blah blah (OH NO) “we are offering you an opportunity to revise the manuscript and resubmit it for publication” (HELLLL YEAH)
Revise and resubmits are more important than new submissions. They are more important than data collection. They are more important than your to-do lists. Drop what you are doing and work on them right now.
My basic approach: I consider each reviewer’s comments as a piece of their holistic view of the paper. I want each reviewer to feel like, after reading just my memo , that their concerns have been addressed and that they only have to dip into the paper to check on things. There are lots of different ways to do this - here are various other takes on this process!
I change the actual process I use quite a bit, often based on what my coauthors want to do. Some coauthors love an excel sheet, others like to write the memo first and then do the changes, others want to meet frequently, etc. You do you! Here is my general method:
Read the reviews. Get mad, get sad, get drunk. Step away for a few days.
Read the reviews again. If there are truly mean or horrid things in the reviews, I make a new revision document where I revise the reviewers’ language to not be so mean.
Example: I had a reviewer who once said: “Yet they ask theoretical questions, and pursue empirical tests, that approximate the least interesting ways in which one could interrogate their ideas and data.” I changed this in the memo to say “ The reviewer noted that they would like the authors to spice it up a bit ” At least this made me laugh instead of cry? Also, I didn’t have to read that fucking tortured sentence again and again.
If I have coauthors, meet to discuss the reviews. This is your chance to point out what giant meanieheads the reviewers are, moan about it a bit, and then assign tasks to members of the team. If I have a solo project, I often ask a trusted friend to read the reviews for me and let me complain to them.
When assigning tasks, I focus on the ‘big asks’ first – what are the major changes that I/we need to do to address the reviewers’ comments? Where do we start? Do we need to collect data? Do new analyses? Read new things? Who is going to do each of those tasks?
Make a fucking plan. When is item 1 going to be done? Item 2? If you need to collect new data to do this one thing before you can do another thing, then get to fucking work on collecting new data! Here, the team might actually write out the revision memo first and then do the work, especially if there is conflict between the reviewers in terms of what they want or a reviewer wants a theoretically tricky maneuver.
Get to fucking work!
Ideally, one person is going to be the “response point person” or the poor sucker responsible for making sure that all the comments are addressed. They are going to be the person that writes / finalizes the revision memo. If there is a larger team, that person’s work should be lighter because this is really the most important job.
When you think you’ve done all the work for the revision, have the point person go through the reviewers’ verbatim comments again and make sure you’ve actually caught it all!
Resubmit. Celebrate. Treat yourself. Get a manicure. Drink a topo chico in the sunshine. Watch a fun holiday cheesy movie . Whatever!
Whatever the reviews, I try to treat this as a friendly process. I assume that the reviews want my paper to be better. I assume that they will appreciate when my paper is actually better. And I don’t treat them like assholes or like they don’t know what they are talking about (even if you strongly think this is the case!). My response memos contain language like “That’s a great idea!” or “Thanks so much for this suggestion.” This is sometimes hard. But even if reviewers are rude, mean, or antagonistic, I am not. If your reviewers are racist, sexist, homophobic – that is something to bring up directly with the editor or editorial team. If they are simply mean? Move forward.
Bonus: In the actual memo, here’s how I handle some of the common types of comments that I get:
The 5-star reviewer : When a reviewer is very positive about my paper, I remind them in the response memo of what they liked about the paper (often going as far as to quote their positive comments back to them). I am complimentary and thankful “We really appreciate the reviewer’s enthusiasm for…” and I try really hard not to mess with the shit they liked! If the 5-star reviewer wants changes, I try my damnedest to provide those changes because I want them to give me another 5-star review when they come back.
The (short) negative review: When a reviewer hates everything about a paper but won’t really tell me why, I overwhelm them with information about what I’ve changed in the paper. The reviewer says “The literature review is embarrassingly slim” - well, buckle up buddy because you are getting information on every single sentence and every single citation I’ve added to the paper. Sometimes this feels like reading tea leaves, but I still try!
The long negative review: When a reviewer hates everything about a paper and tells me why in excruciating detail, I kill them with kindness and details (and sometimes with some hand waving). You don’t like the methodological approach I chose? In fact, you hated everything about it? WOW. Thanks so much for that. You are right (but also a little wrong)! Look at all these extremely detailed ways that I’ve changed it, with quotes from the paper. If I can’t or won’t change something, I try to change things that are around the thing I can’t change (think: a hotel guest hates the view out of their room. Nothing to do about that but look! new drapes !)
The reviewer who wants a different paper : Occasionally, I get a reviewer who just wanted an entirely different paper – one that I did not write. This might be the equivalent of “I wanted to like this hotel, but I wanted to stay on the beach and this wasn’t on the beach.” Listen jerkface, I also want to be at the beach ! In this circumstance, I remind the reviewer what this paper is actually about (“Thanks for the suggestion that we write a different paper about X – that would be an amazing idea for a future research project. Right now, we want to make our paper, about Y, the best possible paper. So we’ve done…”). The reviewer’s suggestion for a different paper might appear as a direction for future research in the conclusion.
The reviewer who is wrong! They want the wrong thing or want something that’s already in the manuscript or are JUST WRONG: Again, I’m kind . If what the reviewer wants is already in the paper, I do a better job of highlighting that thing. If they want a method that doesn’t work, I explain why the method doesn’t work but maybe here’s a related thing that I tried! Often, in these circumstances, I find that what I wrote was actually quite confusing the first time around and if the reviewer is wrong than readers will also be wrong.
Hope that helps. Keep up the good work bebes!
