19 | How to Respond to Reviewers’ Comments

Best Practices

Even the best manuscripts and grant proposals will receive some unfavorable comments during the peer-review process, so don’t be disheartened. Instead, take time to cool down and reflect on the comments. You will then be better prepared to respond appropriately. In the written response,

1. Be organized. Start with an introductory statement in which the reviewers are thanked for their involvement and summarize the major changes that were made to the paper or proposal. Then, address the comments systematically. For manuscripts, each comment should be copied exactly as it was provided, and your response should follow. Often it helps to use a different formatting style (e.g., color) to distinguish the reviewers’ comments from the responses. Your individual responses should begin with a clear and concise statement describing the overall response (agreed, changed as requested, unable to address because this was beyond the scope of the study); next, detail the changes that were made and either copy the newly revised text into this document with block quotes (indented and italicized text) or provide the exact page and line numbers where the reviewers can examine the tracked changes that were made. For grant proposals, in which your response may be restricted to one page, group the reviewers’ concerns into similar themes and respond topically (under the headings Significance, Investigator, Innovation, Approach, Environment). A common error is to ignore or incompletely address some comments—this will hurt your chances of emerging successfully from peer review.
2. Be professional. Always use courteous language and respond in a diplomatic and timely manner. Passionate defenses of the research will not work in your favor. Maintain a professional and objective tone even if the reviewers did not.
3. Be constructive. In general, accommodate all of the requested changes that are easy to address and improve the content. For requested changes that are more difficult to implement, do your best to understand why this issue was flagged during peer review and identify workable solutions; then, clearly explain how the changes are responsive to this comment within the limits of what is possible. Lastly, if you disagree with the requested change, politely state why and fully justify your decision. In preparing your responses, it will help to adopt the perspective of reviewers who must evaluate whether the changes or lack thereof are acceptable.

In conclusion, one word can summarize how best to respond to reviewers’ comments: carefully!

Further Readings and Resources

• Curran-Everett, D. (2017). The thrill of the paper, the agony of the review. Advances in Physiology Education, 41, 338–340. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00069.2017
• Nahata, M.C. & Sorkin, E.M. (2019). Responding to manuscript reviewer and editor comments. Annals of Pharmacotherapy,  53(9), 959–961. https://doi.org/10.1177/1060028019849941
• Noble, W.S. (2017). Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers. PLoS Computational Biology, 13(10), article no. e1005730. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005730