Responding to Peer Review
Responding to Peer Review covers the specific writing task authors face once a journal returns reviewer comments: composing a point-by-point response letter, revising the manuscript to address concerns, and managing disagreement with reviewers or editors without derailing the process. This is a distinct skill from drafting the original manuscript—it requires reading criticism carefully, distinguishing substantive scientific objections from matters of preference, and documenting exactly how and where each concern was addressed in the revised text. PLOS Computational Biology's widely cited 'Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Response to Reviewers' lays out practical conventions for this task, including responding to every point raised, being courteous even when reviewers are mistaken, and using the response letter to make the revised manuscript's improvements legible to the editor. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) provides complementary guidance on the peer-review process itself, including how authors, reviewers, and editors should handle disagreements, appeals, and cases where a reviewer's conduct or a paper's data are called into question. This sub-cluster covers the mechanics of the response letter, strategies for handling major versus minor revisions, how to appeal a rejection or contest a reviewer's assessment, and the etiquette expected in author-editor-reviewer correspondence. It sits after journal submission mechanics and is meant for authors navigating the revise-and-resubmit stage of the editorial cycle.
Guides
Writing a Rebuttal for a Double-Blind CS Conference (NeurIPS/ICML-Style)
A practical, mechanics-first guide to the NeurIPS/ICML-style author rebuttal: anonymity rules, the fixed one-week window, OpenReview’s per-review response format, character limits, and what happens after you submit.
How to Interpret and Respond to a Major Revision Decision
A practical, step-by-step guide to interpreting a major revision decision and building a response that actually survives the second review round.
How to Write a Rejoinder or Reply to a Published Critique
How to structure a rejoinder to a published critique of your journal article: point-by-point response, tone, competing-interests disclosure, and submission mechanics, per ICMJE correspondence norms.
Clean vs. Marked-Up Manuscript Versions for Revision Submission
Journals typically require both a clean manuscript (for typesetting/future readers) and a marked-up, tracked-changes version (for editors/reviewers to verify edits) at revision submission. This guide covers why, the tools used to produce each (Word Track Changes, Google Docs Suggesting, LaTeX’s latexdiff), and common submission mistakes to avoid.
How Co-Authors Should Divide Response-to-Reviewers Work
A practical framework for multi-author teams: who coordinates the split, how to assign reviewer comments by CRediT role or manuscript section, and how to consolidate multiple drafters into one coherent response letter.
Prioritizing Major vs. Minor Reviewer Comments When Time or Word Count Is Limited
A practical triage framework for authors: how to decide which reviewer comments get full individual treatment and which can be batched or briefly acknowledged when a revision deadline or a response-letter length limit means you cannot address everything equally.
How to Respond When a Reviewer Requests an Experiment You Can’t Run
What to do when a peer reviewer’s requested experiment is genuinely infeasible: how to establish that a time, cost, access, or ethics constraint is real, and how to propose a credible substitute instead of simply declining the request.
How to Handle Conflicting or Contradictory Reviewer Feedback
A decision framework for authors facing genuinely contradictory reviewer requests (e.g. one wants a passage cut, another wants it expanded): how to diagnose whether the conflict is real, find a synthesis, decide on merit when none exists, and document the resolution transparently for the editor.
How to Read and Respond to an NIH Summary Statement (Pink Sheet)
How to interpret an NIH summary statement (pink sheet) — criterion scores, overall impact score, percentile rank, and reviewer critiques — and decide whether to resubmit (A1) or submit as new.
Peer Review Response Letters: Major vs. Minor Revisions Across Publisher Templates
How a peer review response letter’s structure should change between major and minor revisions, and how publisher templates (PLOS, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis) vary in what they require.
How to Write a Response to Reviewers Letter
A practical guide to writing a point-by-point response to reviewers letter: standard structure, tone for disagreement, handling conflicting reviewer requests, and a worked example.
Reviewer Comments on a Rejected Manuscript: A Worked Example
An illustrative worked example of the reviewer comments and editor decision letter that typically accompany a manuscript rejection, distinct in tone and content from revise-and-resubmit comments, plus how to tell a fixable objection from a fundamental one and what authors can realistically do next.
Revise and Resubmit (R&R): What the Decision Means and How to Respond
What a revise-and-resubmit (R&R) editorial decision means, how it differs from minor revision, major revision, and reject-and-resubmit, typical timelines, and how to approach the response.
Reviewer Comments to Author: Worked Examples and How to Respond
Illustrative worked examples of reviewer comments paired with author responses, covering methodological objections, clarity issues, and respectful disagreement, plus how to structure and format a response-to-reviewers letter.
