Surviving Referees' Reports

Making revisions in response to referees' comments can be challenging and sometimes discouraging. A pragmatic step-by-step approach can help overcome barriers.

You've just heard from the editor. Maybe the letter says your article is not suitable for publication as it stands but invites you to 'revise and resubmit,' taking into account the referees' reports. Or perhaps you're lucky: Your paper is accepted provisionally, subject to responding to the points raised by the reviewers. Maybe you've hit the jackpot and don't have to make any changes at all! In that case, read no further.

Referees' comments can be discouraging, especially if you take them personally. Some referees say little or nothing that is positive, instead filling their reports with a litany of criticisms. This can be hard to take.

Consider first the worst outcome: The editor says your paper is rejected. Rejections come in all shapes and sizes. I've received form-letter rejections from high-status journals, supposedly refereed, without even the courtesy of an editor's signature. At the other end of the spectrum is a detailed letter from the editor plus several critical readers' reports.

After receiving discouraging news, you may want to give up. Very occasionally, that's the best response: Maybe your paper is really bad! But don't take the editor's or a referee's word for it. Check with a trusted colleague. And make your own judgement. If you've published before, you should have a good idea of the quality of your work, which is not likely to vary enormously from paper to paper. Only give up on a paper if there is consensus between the editor, more than one colleague, and your own judgement. And don't be too tough on yourself.

Otherwise, the next step is to find another journal. Check through the editor's and referees' comments to see if they say anything that you think will improve the paper. If so, make revisions – but only the ones you really want to make. Then just send the paper off to the next journal. There's no point in waiting; journals are slow enough without your contributing to the delay.

Take heart from research by Juan Miguel Campanario showing that some of the most frequently cited papers were initially rejected.² Innovative papers often have a difficult time with referees and may be rejected, sometimes several times, before publication.

It's also worth taking note of acceptance rates at different journals. Some top-ranked journals, especially in the sciences, accept most papers submitted, whereas others, especially in the humanities and social sciences, accept less than 10 per cent. If you've been rejected by a journal with a very low acceptance rate, you're in good company: Many excellent papers don't make the cut.

If your submissions are rejected repeatedly, it might be time to try journals with higher acceptance rates. On the other hand, if every paper you submit is accepted, maybe you should try for a more prestigious or high-impact journal.

Back to those referees' reports. If you think a referee has totally misunderstood your paper – for example, because he or she is in the wrong field – you can ask for reconsideration by a new referee. I've done this successfully a couple of times when a paper was rejected on the basis of a single report. But this procedure is highly unusual, and is not likely to succeed if more than one referee is negative.

If the editor says you can revise and resubmit, that's often a good idea, even if the referees seem hostile. One of my colleagues received two reports, one recommending rejection and the other recommending major changes and resubmission, and the editor discouraged resubmission. He convinced the editor that resubmission should be considered and ended up getting the paper published. If the editor encourages you to revise and resubmit, that's a good sign that doing so is worthwhile.

Revising: it sounds easy enough but it can be agony. The biggest problems arise from taking the criticisms personally and from taking them too seriously...