Reviewers' comments terrify me

[egilson]

At the purest level of my psyche, I know that peer review comments lead me to better writing and better (humanities) scholarship. At the more pragmatic level, I know that giving reviews what they want gets the article into the journal and into my soon-due tenure packet. At the real, gnawing-at-my-gut level, every single less-that-positive comment in a review means I'm a lazy, stupid, and self-deluded fraud.

Yeah, OK. I'm printing out the comments, reading through them careful with my feet up, a cup of coffee in hand, and Abul Mogard playing at low volume. Then, I'm getting to work.

(And hi, y'all.)

[Puget]

Totally different field, but here's my process in case there is anything here that might help you get through this necessary process with less pain. Good luck and keep at it!

This is for an R & R. For outright rejections where I have to revise for another journal I'm much more selective in what reviewer comments I incorporate.

1. Skim through them once as soon as I get the reviews. Allow myself to feel whatever I'm feeling.
2. Put them away for at least a day or two.
3. Copy them into a Word file. Break up and number the comments for those annoying reviewers who don't already submit their reviews in bullet point format.
3. Go through reading carefully, and write notes to myself/my co-authors under each reviewer comment about how we can address it. These are often quite snarky and definitely not what will end up in the final version. I like to use red font for this.
4. Put it way again for at least a day or two.
5. Go back and turn the red notes into draft cover letter responses*. Here is where I start really thinking through how I will revise the text to address it, and how to word this to show the reviewer we're being responsive to their comment. The snarkiness goes at this point. This text is in blue until I've actually made the changes in the paper.
6. Make the changes in the paper itself.
7. Read through the cover letter responses one more time to make sure you have really addressed each one clearly in both places, that these match, and to check tone for any remaining defensiveness/dismissiveness.
8. Resubmit!

* In the sciences, revisions often require extensive additional statistical analyses or even more data collection. In that case, this step is delayed considerably until that is done so we know what the response is.

[pigou]

I recently got a grant review back in which the reviewers crushed the proposal and my academic track record. That was for $10,000. A week later, I got all glowing reviews on a $50,000 grant that was related to the same project and reviewers highlighted my academic track record. Reviews can be pretty random and accepting the randomness for what it is makes life much less stressful.

[Hibush]

5. Go back and turn the red notes into draft cover letter responses. Here is where I start really thinking through how I will revise the text to address it, and how to word this to show the reviewer we're being responsive to their comment. The snarkiness goes at this point. This text is in blue until I've actually made the changes in the paper.
6. Make the changes in the paper itself.

This is the better order. Thanks for making that point.
Most people do the reverse, but it is more efficient to make the changes if you know that the resulting rationale is going to be persuasive.

[drabs]

A huge part of reviewers (at least, in my discipline) is giving an outside perspective, and helping you understand how an audience will react.  I would think this is especially true in Humanities disciplines, where you might even be writing a paper without coauthors (something I've not done).  I've been an author of thirty-ish papers, and only one was ever accepted without revisions (I wasn't remotely the first author, and deserve little credit for that) - it's just too easy to overlook a bit of the literature, or gloss over something your audience will want to see, or think something is obvious when it's really only obvious to you who've been working on this project for a year or more.

[Beebee]

I have a decently thick skin against paper reviews by now, but some grant reviews still hurt. And yes, they are very random in terms of who does the reviewing - their background, their agenda (e.g. past mentees applying for the same award, feud with your past advisor), and other factors. Still, it's hard to not let it get to you sometimes.

[fast_and_bulbous]

I am at the point where I don't get mad anymore when the reviewers are idiots or have an agenda that they are acting out. I just look at what stupid hoops I have to jump through to get the prize, and continue. The more I do this the more I don't care - it's really all just a game.

[waterboy]

I also just take whatever comments make sense, do those, and then tell the editor why I didn't do the others. The goal is to get the thing published - not so that anyone necessarily reads it, but to properly inflate the cv so as to possibly get to full.  Going up next year. I'm a proper cynic, I am.

[glowdart]

An approach: My colleagues, in a discipline where the reviewers are unnecessarily harsh, read and summarize comments for each other. Once the author has come to terms with the summary version, then the originals are read. Sometimes, though, the colleague will redact especially noisome comments from the originals.

[aside]

1.  I read the reviewers' comments carefully and calmly.
2.  I write long angry, rebuttals in the margins to each asinine comment.
3.  I fashion voodoo dolls, stick pins in various particularly painful locations, then burn them.
4.  I revise the article according to the reviewers' suggestions, insofar as I can while retaining a shred of integrity.
5.  I resubmit.

[youllneverwalkalone]

At the beginning of my career I also used to take reviewer's criticism pretty defensively. Now with plenty of publishing and reviewing experiencing I am way more dispassionate about it.

Young authors should keep in mind that while you have to address (as in "reply to") all reviewers' comments, you don't have to implement everything they say to get your paper accepted.

[polly_mer]

Young authors should keep in mind that while you have to address (as in "reply to") all reviewers' comments, you don't have to implement everything they say to get your paper accepted.

Yes, this is important.  A huge difference exists between "yes, that's a gap in explaining what I did and why" and "no, that's a completely different study and out of scope of what we're doing here".

One benefit of having several reviewers is being able to see the pattern of similar questions from everyone, which probably do need to be addressed, and that doggone Reviewer 2 who wants a completely different paper that only exists in their mind.

Perhaps useful is "Don't Be Reviewer 2: Improving the Academic Journal Process".

[egilson]

Thanks, everyone. As it turns out, reviewer two makes pointed and valuable comments but, in a few instances, claims I did not consider specific pieces of scholarship that I used, cited, and have in the bibliography. The biggest problem is that adding everything reviewer two wants will expand the article by about 25%, while reviewer two, who is in the main much more positive, wants the article to be shorter. The extremely helpful editor did warn me that I should negotiate between the two as best I can, and I'm starting to feel good about it as an intellectual puzzle.

[wellfleet]

An approach: My colleagues, in a discipline where the reviewers are unnecessarily harsh, read and summarize comments for each other. Once the author has come to terms with the summary version, then the originals are read. Sometimes, though, the colleague will redact especially noisome comments from the originals.

I have done this for folks and recommend it highly, especially for writers who can't help but take the barbs seriously.

[Hibush]

I just submitted a manuscript to a journal that has an "interactive review forum". The idea is that you can go back and forth with the reviewers. This will require a change in the usual process of thinking about and responding to their comments. That process is the one Aside and Puget describe above.

Any suggestions on preparing for this interactive forum?