Here’s a quick overview of the tips Prof. Mcloughlin shared in this video:

• Evaluate each comment for its merit
• Don’t mindlessly agree to everything
• Incorporate all reasonable requests
• Inform the editor about any suggestions you did not incorporate and why

Tanya Golash-Boza, Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Merced, also shared some relevant advice on this aspect in her guest post for Editage Insights.

Read the full post here.

Author FAQs

Here are a couple of related questions authors asked us about responding to reviewer comments.

• How should I respond if I cannot address a reviewer's suggestion?

The reviewer thought it would be interesting to add a picture of the experimental setup of the sample in the testing machine, but I did not take pictures of the experimental setup at the time the experiments were performed. Could you please tell me how can I respond to the reviewer?

Read our response to this question here.

• What can I do when I can't agree with the reviewer's comments?

After the third round of review, we received major revisions again. One reviewer was very satisfied with our revision but another showed the opposite response. He/she said that we have to conduct another study to test our hypothesis. But this is impossible because there is no way to access the qualified participants. so we tested another way following other previous studies. But the reviewer doesn't agree with our approach even though the same method was used in previous research. Can I ask the editor to change the reviewer? Or is there any other solution to this?

Read our response to this question here.

What would you have done?

We’d like to know how you would have responded to these queries. Don’t worry, this is not a test. We just want you to think from a neutral perspective and build your own understanding of how you can deal with such situations as an author. Leave your comments below.