Grafting a revision

Responding to referee comments constructively improves the quality of published papers.

The scenario is familiar to many of us at some point or another in our careers; after spending years working on a project and building what we think is a complete story, the long-awaited reviews finally arrive with a long list of criticisms. Disappointment, however, turns to outrage as you start scrolling through the referee reports, which seem to go on and on. You stare at the comments in disbelief, noting that one of the referees has made critical mistakes, whereas another expects you to spend several years following up the story, which would involve both gobs of money and the careers of several postdocs. Even when editors allow the option of a resubmission, the process of revising a paper can sometimes be a frustrating journey for the authors, editors and referees. Some authors may even begin to suspect that referees are out to deliberately thwart the publication of individual papers and that one must fight with editors and referees to get the paper published. (Full text / leer +)

Nature Neuroscience
Volume: 14, Page: 941
Year published: (2011)
DOI:10.1038/nn0811-941
Published online 26 July 2011