Preparing Manuscripts and Responding to Referees

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Preparing Manuscripts and Responding to
Referees ReportsIan StolermanTom BaborRobert
West
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What Editors Want

• Quality
• Originality
• Good methods
• A good fit to the journal
• No trouble

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Final Decisions Depend On

• Importance, originality
• Reviewers concerns
• Fatal flaws
• Journal Philosophy
• Space Available
• Editorial work required

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Triage Rejection Before Peer Review
Journals have a duty to avoid wasting referee
time and undue delays in responding to authors
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Triage Rejection Before Peer Review
Reasons for instant rejections

• Outside scope of the journal (e.g. not about
  addiction).
• Manuscript type unacceptable
• (e.g. review sent to a journal that publishes
  new data papers only).
• Ignores instructions to authors.
• Major methodological weakness (e.g. too few
  subjects).
• Clear ethical problems (waste of animals).
• Purely descriptive, parochial, no hypotheses, no
  conclusions.
• Statistical analysis lacking.
• Nothing new in it.

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Triage and BeyondThe Balance between Innovation
and Rigour
The perfect paper has important new ideas backed
up by sound data from thoroughly validated
methods. In real papers there is a trade-off
between innovation and quality of data.

• If the approach to a problem or the type of study
  is very innovative, with much heuristic
  potential, you may succeed with less convincing
  data.
• If there is not very much that is new, but your
  study is the first one with an adequate design,
  then you need really clear and convincing data.

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Comply with Details of Instructions to Authors
1. Introduction to the Paper

• Indicate at the outset the problem that is
  addressed - get the reader interested!
• Ensure the Introduction summarises previous work
  adequately.
• State the objectives of work
• Doing something because it has not been done
  before is not enough. Why does it need to be
  done?
• State hypotheses to be tested. How will they be
  tested - outline of plan of work.
• Dont include conclusions in the Introduction.

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Instructions to Authors 2. Methods
Convince readers the methods are valid. Study
the Methods sections of recent published papers
using similar techniques.

• Recruitment procedures.
• Criteria for inclusion/exclusion.
• Reference previous uses of measuring instruments
  and techniques.
• Dont just say what you did, explain why you did
  it that way (e.g. how drug doses were chosen).
• Include as much detail as possible in the space.
• Specify statistical methods and software used.

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Common Problems with Results Sections

• Results are mixed with descriptions of methods
  and conclusions, and are not linked to questions
  asked.
• Claims are made but the data are not shown.
• The data are not described, just the results of
  statistical analyses.
• Boring to read because the important findings are
  left to the end or not emphasised enough.
• Insufficiently graphical presentation. Try to
  make figures understandable without reading the
  text.
• Excessive detail in Tables and Figures obscures
  the message and wastes space. Do not duplicate.

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Common Data Analysis Issues

• Failure to deal adequately with confounding
  variables.
• Claims to find something without a directly
  supporting statistical test.
• Inappropriate conclusions from non-significant
  associations/differences.
• Failure to control for multiple comparisons.

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Common Problems with Discussions

• Opening paragraph is only a summary of results.
  Select the main data and emphasise 2-3 important
  conclusions in relation to the data.
• Does not focus on aims as stated in Introduction.
• Does not place findings in context of previous
  knowledge. Every paragraph should compare and
  contrast your data with relevant previous
  findings, indicating what is new and what is
  confirmatory.
• Addresses too many issues and is too long.
• Does not consider alternative interpretations or
  acknowledge major limitations of the work.
• Descends into politics and polemics.
• Wastes space discussing trends

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Responding to Referee Reports
If you dont want to make any of the changes,
take a break and look at it again another day.

• Construct a detailed reply to referees. Reply
  with numbered sections corresponding to referees
  points.
• Make revisions to deal with most criticisms then
  explain why you have not dealt with the rest.
• Describe briefly each change you make, refer the
  reader to the relevant page in the revised
  manuscript.
• Referees are human be prepared to make some
  minor changes that you dont feel are really
  necessary.
• If there are important or major changes
  recommended that you are absolutely sure are
  wrong, then present a polite, logically-argued
  rebuttal.

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Responding to Referee Reports
Engender trust never claim to have made changes
when you have not done so.

• If you have made major changes by rewriting whole
  sections, state you have done that.
• If you have just inserted or deleted a few words,
  make clear which words so that referees can see
  something has been done.
• If you are asked to shorten something, do so to
  at least some extent and perhaps state by how
  much.

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Responding to Referee Reports

• Keep your reply as short as possible, e.g. 1-3
  single-spaced pages. If the referee writes three
  lines and you need a page to rebut it, your
  argument will not be convincing.
• If the referee cannot understand your point, try
  to see how the misunderstanding has arisen and
  make changes so it will not happen again.
• If one person does not follow what you have
  written the same may apply to others.
• Answer questions raised by the referee in the
  manuscript, not in the cover letter.

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Responding to Referee Reports

• Spend a significant amount of time getting your
  reply to referees as near perfect as you can.
• Maximise and stress agreements with what they
  write, acknowledge their contribution.
• Minimise disagreements (but not to the point of
  dishonesty).
• If you feel a referee shows a bias to a
  theoretical approach that differs from yours, you
  can explain that there are different approaches,
  that yours is equally valid, there is a genuine
  difference of opinion and you have a different
  but scientifically legitimate view. Dont do this
  unless you have a strong case.

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Common Problems with Discussions

• Opening paragraph is only a summary of results.
  Select the main data and emphasise 2-3 important
  conclusions in relation to the data.
• Does not focus on aims as stated in Introduction.
• Does not place findings in context of previous
  knowledge. Every paragraph should compare and
  contrast your data with relevant previous
  findings, indicating what is new and what is
  confirmatory.
• Addresses too many issues and is too long.
• Does not consider alternative interpretations or
  acknowledge major limitations of the work.
• Descends into politics and polemics.
• Wastes space discussing trends

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Summary Optimizing your Chances

• Match the Journals
• Mission
• Quality
• Read the instructions!
• Provide good abstract
• Revise
• Thoroughly
• Quickly