research paper reviewer comments

Major revisions: Sample peer review comments and examples

‘Major revisions’ is one of the most common peer review decisions. It means that the peer reviewer considers a manuscript suitable for publication if the authors rectify some major shortcomings. As a peer reviewer, it is useful to learn about common reasons for a ‘major revision’ verdict. Furthermore, you can get inspired by sample peer review comments and examples which reflect this verdict appropriately.

Common reasons for a ‘major revisions’ decision

Sample peer review comments for a ‘major revisions’ verdict, reviewer comments ‘major revisions’ example 1, reviewer comments ‘major revisions’ example 2.

Peer reviewers recommend whether a manuscript is worth publishing. Thus, the task of peer-reviewing should not be taken lightly.

Knowing how to react to a ‘major revisions’ verdict on your own manuscript is important. Yet, it is different from evaluating someone else’s manuscript.

As a manuscript reviewer, you decide on a ‘major revisions’ verdict if you think that the manuscript is good, but that the authors have to address some significant issues before it can be published.

There are four common reasons for a ‘major revisions’ decision:

• The theoretical framework needs improvement: Manuscripts that present a promising yet incomplete theoretical framework often receive ‘major revisions’. An incomplete theoretical framework disregards for instance a relevant body of literature or an important theory.
• Evidence needs to be strengthened: Manuscripts should develop clear arguments, and academic journals even welcome provoking claims. However, these claims have to be supported by convincing evidence. In some manuscripts, this evidence is insufficient, and more detailed information, calculations, examples, figures, tables or quotes are needed.
• Some sections are illogical or unclear: At times, some sections or paragraphs are difficult to follow. Thus, they need to be deleted, reordered or rewritten. Note that too many structural issues in a manuscript often result in a ‘ revise and resubmit ‘ decision.

You may also like: Reject decisions – Sample peer review comments and examples

“The manuscript shows a lot of promise, but some major issues need to be addressed before it can be published.”

“This manuscript addresses a timely topic and makes a relevant contribution to the field. However, some major revisions are needed before it can be published.”

“I enjoyed reading this manuscript, and believe that it is very promising. At the same time, I identified several issues that require the authors’ attention.”

“The manuscript sheds light on an interesting phenomenon. However, it also has several shortcomings. I strongly encourage the authors to address the following points.”

“The authors of this manuscript have an ambitious objective and draw on an interesting dataset. However, their main argument is unclear.”

“The key argument needs to be worked out and formulated much more clearly.”

“The theoretical framework is promising but incomplete. In my opinion, the authors cannot make their current claims without considering writings on… “

“The literature review is promising, but disregards recent publications in the field of…”

“The empirical evidence is at times insufficient to support the authors’ claims. For instance, in section…”

“I encourage the authors to provide more in-depth evidence. For instance, I would like to see more interview quotes and a more transparent statistical analysis.”

“The authors work with an interesting dataset. However, I was missing more detailed insights in the actual results. I believe that several additional tables and figures can improve the authors’ argumentation. “

“I believe that the manuscript addresses a relevant topic and includes a timely discussion. However, I struggled to understand section 3.1.”

“I think that the manuscript can be improved by removing section 4 and integrating it into section 5.”

“The discussion and conclusions are difficult to follow and need to be rewritten to highlight the key contributions of this manuscript.”

“The line of argumentation should be improved by dividing the manuscript into clear sections with subheadings.”

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Revise and resubmit: Sample peer review comments and examples

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My Complete Guide to Academic Peer Review: Example Comments & How to Make Paper Revisions

Once you’ve submitted your paper to an academic journal you’re in the nerve-racking position of waiting to hear back about the fate of your work. In this post we’ll cover everything from potential responses you could receive from the editor and example peer review comments through to how to submit revisions.

My first first-author paper was reviewed by five (yes 5!) reviewers and since then I’ve published several others papers, so now I want to share the insights I’ve gained which will hopefully help you out!

This post is part of my series to help with writing and publishing your first academic journal paper. You can find the whole series here: Writing an academic journal paper .

The Peer Review Process

When you submit a paper to a journal, the first thing that will happen is one of the editorial team will do an initial assessment of whether or not the article is of interest. They may decide for a number of reasons that the article isn’t suitable for the journal and may reject the submission before even sending it out to reviewers.

If this happens hopefully they’ll have let you know quickly so that you can move on and make a start targeting a different journal instead.

Handy way to check the status – Sign in to the journal’s submission website and have a look at the status of your journal article online. If you can see that the article is under review then you’ve passed that first hurdle!

When your paper is under peer review, the journal will have set out a framework to help the reviewers assess your work. Generally they’ll be deciding whether the work is to a high enough standard.

Interested in reading about what reviewers are looking for? Check out my post on being a reviewer for the first time. Peer-Reviewing Journal Articles: Should You Do It? Sharing What I Learned From My First Experiences .

Once the reviewers have made their assessments, they’ll return their comments and suggestions to the editor who will then decide how the article should proceed.

How Many People Review Each Paper?

The editor ideally wants a clear decision from the reviewers as to whether the paper should be accepted or rejected. If there is no consensus among the reviewers then the editor may send your paper out to more reviewers to better judge whether or not to accept the paper.

If you’ve got a lot of reviewers on your paper it isn’t necessarily that the reviewers disagreed about accepting your paper.

You can also end up with lots of reviewers in the following circumstance:

• The editor asks a certain academic to review the paper but doesn’t get a response from them
• The editor asks another academic to step in
• The initial reviewer then responds

Next thing you know your work is being scrutinised by extra pairs of eyes!

As mentioned in the intro, my first paper ended up with five reviewers!

Potential Journal Responses

Assuming that the paper passes the editor’s initial evaluation and is sent out for peer-review, here are the potential decisions you may receive:

• Reject the paper. Sadly the editor and reviewers decided against publishing your work. Hopefully they’ll have included feedback which you can incorporate into your submission to another journal. I’ve had some rejections and the reviewer comments were genuinely useful.
• Accept the paper with major revisions . Good news: with some more work your paper could get published. If you make all the changes that the reviewers suggest, and they’re happy with your responses, then it should get accepted. Some people see major revisions as a disappointment but it doesn’t have to be.
• Accept the paper with minor revisions. This is like getting a major revisions response but better! Generally minor revisions can be addressed quickly and often come down to clarifying things for the reviewers: rewording, addressing minor concerns etc and don’t require any more experiments or analysis. You stand a really good chance of getting the paper published if you’ve been given a minor revisions result.
• Accept the paper with no revisions . I’m not sure that this ever really happens, but it is potentially possible if the reviewers are already completely happy with your paper!

Keen to know more about academic publishing? My series on publishing is now available as a free eBook. It includes my experiences being a peer reviewer. Click the image below for access.

Example Peer Review Comments & Addressing Reviewer Feedback

If your paper has been accepted but requires revisions, the editor will forward to you the comments and concerns that the reviewers raised. You’ll have to address these points so that the reviewers are satisfied your work is of a publishable standard.

It is extremely important to take this stage seriously. If you don’t do a thorough job then the reviewers won’t recommend that your paper is accepted for publication!

You’ll have to put together a resubmission with your co-authors and there are two crucial things you must do:

• Make revisions to your manuscript based off reviewer comments
• Reply to the reviewers, telling them the changes you’ve made and potentially changes you’ve not made in instances where you disagree with them. Read on to see some example peer review comments and how I replied!

Before making any changes to your actual paper, I suggest having a thorough read through the reviewer comments.

Once you’ve read through the comments you might be keen to dive straight in and make the changes in your paper. Instead, I actually suggest firstly drafting your reply to the reviewers.

Why start with the reply to reviewers? Well in a way it is actually potentially more important than the changes you’re making in the manuscript.

Imagine when a reviewer receives your response to their comments: you want them to be able to read your reply document and be satisfied that their queries have largely been addressed without even having to open the updated draft of your manuscript. If you do a good job with the replies, the reviewers will be better placed to recommend the paper be accepted!

By starting with your reply to the reviewers you’ll also clarify for yourself what changes actually have to be made to the paper.

So let’s now cover how to reply to the reviewers.

1. Replying to Journal Reviewers

It is so important to make sure you do a solid job addressing your reviewers’ feedback in your reply document. If you leave anything unanswered you’re asking for trouble, which in this case means either a rejection or another round of revisions: though some journals only give you one shot! Therefore make sure you’re thorough, not just with making the changes but demonstrating the changes in your replies.

It’s no good putting in the work to revise your paper but not evidence it in your reply to the reviewers!

There may be points that reviewers raise which don’t appear to necessitate making changes to your manuscript, but this is rarely the case. Even for comments or concerns they raise which are already addressed in the paper, clearly those areas could be clarified or highlighted to ensure that future readers don’t get confused.

How to Reply to Journal Reviewers

Some journals will request a certain format for how you should structure a reply to the reviewers. If so this should be included in the email you receive from the journal’s editor. If there are no certain requirements here is what I do:

• Copy and paste all replies into a document.
• Separate out each point they raise onto a separate line. Often they’ll already be nicely numbered but sometimes they actually still raise separate issues in one block of text. I suggest separating it all out so that each query is addressed separately.
• Form your reply for each point that they raise. I start by just jotting down notes for roughly how I’ll respond. Once I’m happy with the key message I’ll write it up into a scripted reply.
• Finally, go through and format it nicely and include line number references for the changes you’ve made in the manuscript.

By the end you’ll have a document that looks something like:

Reviewer 1 Point 1: [Quote the reviewer’s comment] Response 1: [Address point 1 and say what revisions you’ve made to the paper] Point 2: [Quote the reviewer’s comment] Response 2: [Address point 2 and say what revisions you’ve made to the paper] Then repeat this for all comments by all reviewers!

What To Actually Include In Your Reply To Reviewers

For every single point raised by the reviewers, you should do the following:

• Address their concern: Do you agree or disagree with the reviewer’s comment? Either way, make your position clear and justify any differences of opinion. If the reviewer wants more clarity on an issue, provide it. It is really important that you actually address their concerns in your reply. Don’t just say “Thanks, we’ve changed the text”. Actually include everything they want to know in your reply. Yes this means you’ll be repeating things between your reply and the revisions to the paper but that’s fine.
• Reference changes to your manuscript in your reply. Once you’ve answered the reviewer’s question, you must show that you’re actually using this feedback to revise the manuscript. The best way to do this is to refer to where the changes have been made throughout the text. I personally do this by include line references. Make sure you save this right until the end once you’ve finished making changes!

Example Peer Review Comments & Author Replies

In order to understand how this works in practice I’d suggest reading through a few real-life example peer review comments and replies.

The good news is that published papers often now include peer-review records, including the reviewer comments and authors’ replies. So here are two feedback examples from my own papers:

Example Peer Review: Paper 1

Quantifying 3D Strain in Scaffold Implants for Regenerative Medicine, J. Clark et al. 2020 – Available here

This paper was reviewed by two academics and was given major revisions. The journal gave us only 10 days to get them done, which was a bit stressful!

• Reviewer Comments
• My reply to Reviewer 1
• My reply to Reviewer 2

One round of reviews wasn’t enough for Reviewer 2…

• My reply to Reviewer 2 – ROUND 2

Thankfully it was accepted after the second round of review, and actually ended up being selected for this accolade, whatever most notable means?!

Nice to see our recent paper highlighted as one of the most notable articles, great start to the week! Thanks @Materials_mdpi 😀 #openaccess & available here: https://t.co/AKWLcyUtpC @ICBiomechanics @julianrjones @saman_tavana pic.twitter.com/ciOX2vftVL — Jeff Clark (@savvy_scientist) December 7, 2020

Example Peer Review: Paper 2

Exploratory Full-Field Mechanical Analysis across the Osteochondral Tissue—Biomaterial Interface in an Ovine Model, J. Clark et al. 2020 – Available here

This paper was reviewed by three academics and was given minor revisions.

• My reply to Reviewer 3

I’m pleased to say it was accepted after the first round of revisions 🙂

Things To Be Aware Of When Replying To Peer Review Comments

• Generally, try to make a revision to your paper for every comment. No matter what the reviewer’s comment is, you can probably make a change to the paper which will improve your manuscript. For example, if the reviewer seems confused about something, improve the clarity in your paper. If you disagree with the reviewer, include better justification for your choices in the paper. It is far more favourable to take on board the reviewer’s feedback and act on it with actual changes to your draft.
• Organise your responses. Sometimes journals will request the reply to each reviewer is sent in a separate document. Unless they ask for it this way I stick them all together in one document with subheadings eg “Reviewer 1” etc.
• Make sure you address each and every question. If you dodge anything then the reviewer will have a valid reason to reject your resubmission. You don’t need to agree with them on every point but you do need to justify your position.
• Be courteous. No need to go overboard with compliments but stay polite as reviewers are providing constructive feedback. I like to add in “We thank the reviewer for their suggestion” every so often where it genuinely warrants it. Remember that written language doesn’t always carry tone very well, so rather than risk coming off as abrasive if I don’t agree with the reviewer’s suggestion I’d rather be generous with friendliness throughout the reply.

2. How to Make Revisions To Your Paper

Once you’ve drafted your replies to the reviewers, you’ve actually done a lot of the ground work for making changes to the paper. Remember, you are making changes to the paper based off the reviewer comments so you should regularly be referring back to the comments to ensure you’re not getting sidetracked.

Reviewers could request modifications to any part of your paper. You may need to collect more data, do more analysis, reformat some figures, add in more references or discussion or any number of other revisions! So I can’t really help with everything, even so here is some general advice:

• Use tracked-changes. This is so important. The editor and reviewers need to be able to see every single change you’ve made compared to your first submission. Sometimes the journal will want a clean copy too but always start with tracked-changes enabled then just save a clean copy afterwards.
• Be thorough . Try to not leave any opportunity for the reviewers to not recommend your paper to be published. Any chance you have to satisfy their concerns, take it. For example if the reviewers are concerned about sample size and you have the means to include other experiments, consider doing so. If they want to see more justification or references, be thorough. To be clear again, this doesn’t necessarily mean making changes you don’t believe in. If you don’t want to make a change, you can justify your position to the reviewers. Either way, be thorough.
• Use your reply to the reviewers as a guide. In your draft reply to the reviewers you should have already included a lot of details which can be incorporated into the text. If they raised a concern, you should be able to go and find references which address the concern. This reference should appear both in your reply and in the manuscript. As mentioned above I always suggest starting with the reply, then simply adding these details to your manuscript once you know what needs doing.

Putting Together Your Paper Revision Submission

• Once you’ve drafted your reply to the reviewers and revised manuscript, make sure to give sufficient time for your co-authors to give feedback. Also give yourself time afterwards to make changes based off of their feedback. I ideally give a week for the feedback and another few days to make the changes.
• When you’re satisfied that you’ve addressed the reviewer comments, you can think about submitting it. The journal may ask for another letter to the editor, if not I simply add to the top of the reply to reviewers something like:

“Dear [Editor], We are grateful to the reviewer for their positive and constructive comments that have led to an improved manuscript.  Here, we address their concerns/suggestions and have tracked changes throughout the revised manuscript.”

Once you’re ready to submit:

• Double check that you’ve done everything that the editor requested in their email
• Double check that the file names and formats are as required
• Triple check you’ve addressed the reviewer comments adequately
• Click submit and bask in relief!

You won’t always get the paper accepted, but if you’re thorough and present your revisions clearly then you’ll put yourself in a really good position. Remember to try as hard as possible to satisfy the reviewers’ concerns to minimise any opportunity for them to not accept your revisions!

Best of luck!

I really hope that this post has been useful to you and that the example peer review section has given you some ideas for how to respond. I know how daunting it can be to reply to reviewers, and it is really important to try to do a good job and give yourself the best chances of success. If you’d like to read other posts in my academic publishing series you can find them here:

Blog post series: Writing an academic journal paper

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2 Comments on “My Complete Guide to Academic Peer Review: Example Comments & How to Make Paper Revisions”

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Giving an effective peer review: sample framework and comments

The system of peer-reviewed journals requires that academics review papers written by other academics, that is, papers written by their peers. We have previously discussed peer review generally ( Why do the rules and conventions of academic publishing keep changing and how can researchers stay current? ) and how authors can effectively respond to peer review ( Writing effective response letters to reviewers: Tips and a template ). This article will cover the other side: being a reviewer.

Here, we'll look at the basic tenets of peer review, and we've provided a sample framework to help new reviewers give comments that will help authors strengthen their papers.

Basic tenets of peer reviewing:

There are 5 basic tenets that should be kept in mind:

• Decline the review if you have any conflicts of interest (COIs).
• Remember that you're advising the journal editor, not making the decision about whether to accept or reject.
• Try to be helpful and always respectful to the author.
• Maintain confidentiality of the paper contents.
• Decline the review if you are too busy, or not familiar enough with the topic, to complete a proper review.

Peer reviews are intended to be impartial (unbiased), and so anyone asked to be a reviewer should consider, before accepting, whether they have any COIs. Anything that could make you, as a reviewer, consider the paper more or less favorably because of your relationship with the author is a COI. You should decline to review, or at minimum disclose to the journal editor, papers written by (a) past co-authors of yours, (b) members of your department, (c) your students or mentors, (d) personal friends, and (e) professional rivals. You should also decline if you will gain any potential financial or personal benefits from publication of the work. If you are unsure about whether a conflict of interest exists, check the journal's guidelines or with the journal editor. As examples of COI policies, Elsevier has a general factsheet on COIs and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides information about peer reviewer responsibilities .

The reviewer acts as an advisor to the journal editor. Because of this, the review should be more than a simple "accept" or "reject". When writing a review, you should describe the reasons for the recommendation so that the editor can make an informed decision. It is far more important to comment on the academic content of a paper than on grammar and punctuation. However, if the language is too poor to understand the contents adequately, then alert the journal editor. See below for a sample framework that will assist you in ensuring that you've covered the most important points in your review.

The review will be sent to the author of the paper. Because of this, reviewers are in a strong position to advise the author on how the paper could be strengthened. Whether you are recommending acceptance or rejection, the author could benefit from your feedback and advice. One particular caution is when you want to suggest the authors cite your own papers—do this sparingly. The review should be intended to help the author, not the reviewer. Finally, reviews should be respectful in tone. Unfortunately, we've all seen derogatory and unhelpful reviewer comments at times, which do not help the author. Peer review should be collegial and respectful.

Reviewers receive submitted papers with the understanding that they are handling confidential communications. As such, they should not discuss the review or disclose any of its content to third parties. Reviewers also should not use their knowledge of the work they are reviewing to further their own personal interests.

Reviewers who are not able to provide a proper review, due to lack of time or lack of expertise in the area covered by the paper, should decline the review.

Get featured articles and other author resources sent to you in English, Japanese, or both languages via our monthly newsletter.

Sample Framework for Your Reviewer Comments

Many journals provide reviewers with a form to fill out during review, but the framework below can be used in other cases.

Describe the basic contribution of the paper. This should be a few sentences on the topic of the paper. Beginning with this helps the journal editor and lets the author know that you've understood the paper.

"This paper discusses _______________. The main contribution of the paper is ____________."

Give your recommendation. You can use one of the following sentences.

"I recommend that this paper be accepted."

"I recommend that this paper be accepted after minor revision."

"I recommend that this paper not be accepted without major revision."

"I recommend that this paper be rejected."

Give your reasons for your recommendation. Label these as "major comments". A few examples are given to the right.

Major comments:

• The statistical analysis in this paper is suitable/unsuitable for….
• In terms of experimental technique, this paper is conventional/novel, and so…
• The Methods section does not clearly explain…
• The results obtained will be useful in…
• Some of the fundamental/recent papers in the field are not cited, among these…
• I would like to see some discussion of the findings of the papers in relation to recent findings and developments in ______.

Finally, give some additional comments about the paper. This is where you can note problems with spelling and/or grammar, suggest changes to figures and tables, and make other specific comments. Label these as "minor comments". A few examples are to the right.

Minor comments:

• In several places, you've used the term _____, but it seems you mean _____.
• In some of the figures, the legends are too small to be legible.
• On page ____, it is stated that _____, but the paper by Smith et al. states that ______. Can you comment on this disparity?
• Have you thought about testing this with _____________?

We hope you've found these tips useful. We currently offer support for new and experienced reviewers in a number of ways, including by translating their comments to English and by editing their English comments to ensure that the authors receiving the review have high-quality, well-worded comments that help them strengthen their manuscripts.

Also, if you have any questions about writing effective reviewer comments, please do let us know. We're happy to support you in this important academic task.

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