回复审稿人：冷静应对拒稿

论文有可能被拒。谁都被拒过稿。只字不改就接受的论文极少，即使是最优秀的科学家，最漂亮的研究，也照 样可能被拒或者被要求修改。不要消极对待目标期刊拒稿和退修要求，而应把它视为发表过程的一个环节，其目的是为了让你的论文在科学上尽可能更健全，以便将 来被录用为科学文献，并成为“集体知识”的一部分。

期刊拒稿有各种原因，大多数在以前的帖子文中已经提及。 比如，如果对拟投期刊的选择不当，就有可能不送去审稿便直接拒稿。期刊定位恰当才能增加稿件获得同行评议的机会(参见以前的帖子选对期刊中的注意事项)。同理，拙劣的投稿信也可能造成不经审稿便直接拒稿(参见以前的帖子投稿信：推销你的稿件中的注意事项)。违反目标期刊《稿约》的规定可能被期刊编辑认为不尊重对方，从而造成拒稿，当然更可能的是被要求修改格式后再投。其他拒稿原因包括研究设计有缺陷、论文写作语言水平不合格、研究方法或统计检验选 择或解释不当、结果叙述不当或夸大其辞、引言和/或讨论不客观公正或缺乏细节；或者就是缺乏新颖性(比如你的研究只是简单重复别人已发表的工作) 、重要性或相关性。投稿之前严格分析你的论文，考虑审稿人会着眼的所有要素，你就可能提前发现这些问题。照着帖子中的经验来做，就能加快从初投到录用的进度，并让其间的各个阶段相对顺利。所以，在投稿前值得尽全力完善文稿质量，以减小拒稿的可能。

关于同行审稿和如何应付，可以考虑一下审稿人会如何处理你的稿件。不同的期刊对审稿人的要求各不相同，但是他们基本上都会要求审稿人审查你的稿件是否满足如下这些良好科研和写作的要素；如果你的稿件不满足其中某项，审稿人还要写出相关评语。
 
重要性

• 结果对该领域的重要性是什么？
• 结果是否对会受到相关和更广范围的研究者关注？

新颖性

• 文中的主张是否足够新颖、因此值得发表？
• 研究是否在已有发表工作基础上取得进展？

引言

• 是否提供充分的背景信息，让非本领域读者能理解研究问题/假说？
• 研究的理由是否定义清楚？
• 为论证本研究工作所引文献是否充分恰当？
• 研究目的是否定义清楚？
• 方法/技术严谨性
• 所用方法对研究目的是否适当？
• 叙述的实验信息是否完整，能让其他研究者重复？
• 是否另需实验来验证该研究结果？
• 补充实验是否能显著提高该文质量？
• 对于已确立的方法，其引用文献是否适当？

结果/统计

• 结果解释是否清晰，表达方式是否恰当？
• 图表信息是否必要，是否更易于用文字表达？
• 插图和正文内部或二者之间数据有无重复？
• 图表是否易于解读？
• 是否需要补充插图以增加清晰性？
• 有否使用适当的统计学方法来检验结果的显著性？

讨论

• 有否考虑数据的所有可能解释，是否存在也能解释数据的备择假设？
• 有无在现有文献背景基础上适当说明结果？
• 满足上述标准同时是否引用了适当的参考文献？
• 有无讨论研究局限性？

结论

• 研究结论是否有适当证据支持，有无夸大？
• 是否清楚讨论了结果的重要性/应用性/意义？

文献引用

• 所引文献是否全面客观，有无遗漏重要研究，有无过分引用某些研究？

期刊选择

• 目标期刊是否恰当？

语言

• 稿件行文是否清楚、因此能被该领域以外的研究者理解？

当你收到退修信和审稿意见时，应仔细研读其中所有评语(包括编辑评语和审 稿人评语)，根据需要在稿件中作出相应调 整，然后撰写一份详细的回复函。通常需要返回修改稿和回复函(回复函和再投稿信可分为两个文件)，并且需要在规定时间之前返回，否则修改稿将被作为新稿处 理。编辑和/或审稿人的所有意见都必须回应，即使你不同意其意见。若你对某点持反对意见，应该礼貌并有理有据地反驳。在反驳时，可以引用某论文来支持你的 说法(如该文不在参考文献中，可以考虑将其收入参考文献列表)，可以解释为何某个实验是以某种特定的方式开展的，也可以是解释为何你不按照审稿意见去做补 充试验。但无论如何，不要不理睬或忽略审稿意见，因为这只会导致延迟。只有所有意见都妥当回应之后，你的论文才有可能发表。

回复函最好的格式是把编辑和审稿人的意见复制下来，然后在各条意见下面逐条回应。审稿意见和回应要用不同字体加以区分(如正体和斜体)。当提到文中的改动时，给出页码和行号以便迅速查找。把修改前后的文字都复制在回复函中，让人一目了然你如何修改回应审稿意见。通常 要在文中标记出主要改动之处以便查找，比如用黄色高亮和/或使用下划线/删除线。最后，若编辑或审稿人要求补充分析或者实验，你应该照办并把数据加入稿 件；这会让稿件更富有说服力并增加发表的机会。

实例

 

切记

1.    不要带着个人情绪去看待拒稿；拒稿的目的是使你的论文更有力和更可靠。
2.    修改稿件来回应编辑和/或审稿人提出的全部意见，并在回复函中说明这些修改。
3.    按要求补充实验或分析，除非你认为这样做意义不大(在这种情况下，需要给出反驳意见)。
4.    对于你不同意的审稿意见，礼貌而地提出有根据的反驳。
5.    用不同字体区分审稿意见和回应。
6.    为回应审稿人意见而在正文中所作的主要改动之处要予以标记，可以用黄色高亮、加下划线，或加删除线等方式。
7.    按期返回修改稿和回复函，以免被当作新投稿处理。

 
英文原文

Your papers will sometimes be rejected. It is inevitable. The percentage of papers that is accepted and published without the need for any revisions is very small, and even the best scientists, writing up the best science, will face rejection from journals or the need to make revisions before their paper is considered acceptable for publication. Rather than thinking of rejection from your target journal and requests for major revisions as a negative experience, it is important to realize that this is an integral part of the publication process that exists to make your paper as robust and complete as possible before it joins the ‘collective knowledge’ as part of the literature.

There are many different possible reasons for rejection from a journal, and most of these have been described in previous tips in this tips series. For example, if you submitted your manuscript to an inappropriate journal it is likely you will receive a rejection letter without the paper even being sent to review. By selecting an appropriate journal (see tip on choosing the right platform ) you will increase the chances that your manuscript will be sent out for review. Similarly, a poor cover letter might result in immediate rejection without review, so submitting your manuscript with a good cover letter is essential (see tip on the cover letter: your sales pitcht). Failure to follow the instructions set out in the target journal’s Guide for Authors is another possible reason for rejection and considered insulting to the journal editors, although it is likely that you will simply receive an invitation to resubmit in the correct format. Other reasons for rejection include flawed study design, poor written language, inappropriate or incompletely explained methodology or statistical tests, incorrect description or overstatement of results, lack of balance or detail in the introduction and/or discussion, or simply a lack of novelty (for example, if your study simply repeats something that has already been done before), significance or relevance. By critically analyzing your paper prior to submission, and considering all of the items that peer reviewers will look at, you will hopefully be able to identify any problems in advance. By following the advice in the tips in this tips series, you will speed up the process from initial submission to publication and make the stages in between considerably less stressful. Therefore, it is worthwhile getting your paper into the best possible form before submitting it anywhere to minimize the likelihood of rejection.

In considering peer review and how to address it, it is helpful to think about how a peer reviewer would have approached your paper. Different journals will ask different things of peer reviewers, but in general they will be checking for the following aspects of good science and scientific writing, and asked to comment whenever any of these criteria are not satisfactorily met in the submitted manuscript:

 Significance

• What is the importance of the findings to researchers in the field?
• Are the findings of general to interest to researchers in related and broader fields?

 Novelty

• Are the claims in the paper sufficiently novel to warrant publication?
• Does the study represent a conceptual advance over previously published work?

 Introduction

• Does the introduction provide sufficient background information for readers not in the immediate field to understand the problem/hypotheses?
• Are the reasons for performing the study clearly defined?
• Are sufficient and appropriate references cited to justify the work performed?
• Are the study objectives clearly defined?

 Methods/Technical rigor

• Are the methods used appropriate to the aims of the study?
• Is sufficient information provided for a capable researcher to reproduce the experiments described?
• Are any additional experiments required to validate the results of those that were performed?
• Are there any additional experiments that would greatly enhance the quality of this paper?
• Are appropriate references cited where previously established methods are used?

 Results/Statistics

• Are the results clearly explained and presented in an appropriate format?
• Do the figures and tables show essential data or are there any that could easily be summarized in the text?
• Is any of the data duplicated in the graphics and/or text?
• Are the figures and tables easy to interpret?
• Are there any additional graphics that would add clarity to the text?
• Have appropriate statistical methods been used to test the significance of the results?

 Discussion

• Are all possible interpretations of the data considered or are there alternative hypotheses that are consistent with the available data?
• Are the findings properly described in the context of the published literature?
• Are appropriate references cited in meeting the above criterion?
• Are the limitations of the study discussed

• Are the conclusions of the study supported by appropriate evidence or are the claims exaggerated?
• Are the significance/applicability/implications of the findings clearly discussed?

 Literature cited

• Is the literature cited balanced or are there important studies not cited, or other studies disproportionately cited?

 Journal selection

• Is the target journal appropriate?

  Language

• Is the manuscript clearly written so as to be understandable by researchers not in the immediate field?

When you receive a letter of rejection and peer review reports from the journal editor it is important that you carefully study all of the comments (from the editor as well as the reviewers), address these in your manuscript as appropriate, and prepare a detailed response. It is usual to return a revised manuscript and response letter (it is also acceptable to separate the cover letter and responses into different files), and these normally need to be returned within a set period of time or the revised manuscript will be considered as a new submission. It is essential that you respond to all of the points made by the editor and/or reviewers, even if you disagree with them. If you do disagree with a point that has been made, you should provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal. This might take the form of a reference to a particular paper that supports your statement (such a paper might need to be added to the reference list of your manuscript if it isn’t already cited), an explanation of why an experiment was performed in a particular way, or an explanation of why you didn’t perform additional experiments recommended by the reviewer. Whatever you do, do not ignore or overlook comments, because this will only lead to delays. Your paper will not be published until all comments are appropriately addressed.

The best format for a response letter is to paste in the comments made by the editor and reviewers and write your response beneath each comment. Use different font styles (for example, normal and italics) to differentiate comments from responses. When referring to changes in the text provide the page and line numbers so that these changes can quickly be identified. Copy the new or modified text into the letter so it is immediately clear how your changes address the comment. It is also usual to distinguish major changes in the text in some way, for example, with yellow highlight and/or underline and strikethrough fonts, to make them easy to identify. Finally, if additional analyses or experiments are required to satisfy the editor or reviewers, you should perform them and add the data to your manuscript; these serve to make the final paper stronger and will increase the chances of eventual publication.

Example

 

Checklist

1. Don’t take rejection personally; the object is to make your paper stronger and more reliable
2. Address all points raised by the editor and/or reviewers by revising the manuscript and showing the changes in your letter
3. Perform any additional experiments or analyses requested unless you feel that they would not add to the strength of your paper (in which case you should provide a rebuttal)
4. Provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with
5. Differentiate comments and responses in the letter file by using different font styles
6. Identify major revisions in the text, made in response to peer review comments, with highlight, underline and strikethrough fonts
7. Return the revised manuscript and response letter within the requested time period to avoid your paper being treated as a new submission 

Dr Daniel McGowan
分子神经学博士
理文编辑学术总监


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