Abstract
The process of having a paper reviewed and possibly edited may not be especially pleasant; it often involves painstaking work, but it should be informative, interesting, possibly generous and certainly not distressing. For every author, their submitted paper is a labour, perhaps of love, that they wish to have nurtured, respected and hopefully admired. Reviewers should respect that, but have a duty to the Journal and to hand surgery to critique the paper probing for weaknesses, especially ones that can be corrected, and to highlight all the issues that need to be addressed. Barton (2012) has written about this wisely.
What should the author do when they receive their paper with the Editor’s and reviewers’ comments? Rarely, if ever, will the paper be accepted outright. The best an author can hope for is ‘Revise minor’, meaning that with some more work, the paper will probably be accepted. The clearest and commonest reply will be ‘Reject’. The hardest to interpret is ‘Revise Major’. Many of these papers will be accepted, but plenty rejected after further review. Much more important than the headline are the details in the response letter. There should be a wide range of comments from the reviewers (for all papers, however good or bad) and possibly some comments from the Editor. The Editor may not comment at this stage, rather waiting for the responses to the reviewers’ comments, but they may add some comments of their own or emphasise some of the reviewers’ points. Above all this is a communication. The Editors know how easy it is to reject seminal papers or miss key points that should have been scrutinized further. A look at the commentaries we publish demonstrates that. Thus, the Editor is not claiming that theirs is the final word on the paper, but they are trying to optimize it and then trying to make the best decision. It is not easy; editors worry about both rejecting and accepting papers in this and probably all journals. In the Journal of Hand Surgery (European), we discuss difficult decisions among the Editorial team.
When reading reviewers’ comments, authors should not be offended (the comments should not be offensive). The reviewer is giving their opinion. It does not mean that the Editor necessarily agrees with that opinion, but ideas, comments, statements and theories in papers should be challenged. Once published, bad ideas can go on to lead long and sometimes destructive lives. The authors may be outraged by their assessment of the reviewer’s ignorance and wish to reply that the reviewer is ill informed or worse, but they should simply try to address each point, where necessary clarifying why they disagree. Remember that the paper may be sent back to the original reviewers who may be persuaded by further arguments, but will not be pleased to read disparaging comments. The reviewers may disagree, so the author may be faced with answering the same point from opposing viewpoints. This should be done rationally and clearly. The aim of the author should be to clarify the points being made in the reviews, make changes to the paper where appropriate or explain why those changes are inappropriate, all in order to improve the paper and further encourage the Editor to accept it. It is a dialogue, so it is reasonable to explain a point of view at length if that will be helpful.
It helps enormously if papers can be returned to the Editor reasonably quickly while the topic is still fresh in their mind. If there will be a long delay caused by, for example, the need to collect more data, it is very helpful to inform the Editorial office. Too often, questions from the reviewers or Editor are left unanswered, which is both irritating and prolongs the editing process. Do remember that Editors are human. They have busy lives and will look upon a paper more favourably if the responses are well laid out and the necessary edits addressed.
What happens when you, the author, think the decision – almost certainly ‘Reject’ – is wrong? It may be driven by perceived good reviews apparently ‘ignored’ by the Editor. Editors have been, and often continue to be, reviewers. They are appointed for their experience, so they make the decision guided by the reviews. Papers may be recommended for acceptance by reviewers but still rejected (rarely vice versa). Editors are open to appeal through a reasoned argument, but not to repeated appeals. So if an author feels their paper has been misinterpreted by the reviewers or Editor, it is reasonable to explain their opinion in detail, but only once. As we are rejecting more papers, we see papers we would have published 5 years ago that are now not of sufficient quality, so appeals will rarely succeed. But they are important, because authors are not only the source of our material, they are also our readers. We do not want to run a capricious, inefficient or irritating Editorial process or we will discourage authors from submitting. As we accept many fewer papers than we reject, we will have more disappointed than happy authors, but hopefully happier readers. Ideally the Editorial process should help improve all papers, including the ones we reject, but most of all authors should feel that their paper is improved by the Editorial process.