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What Does a Reviewer Look into a Manuscript

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Writing and Publishing a Scientific Research Paper

Abstract

  • Scientific integrity and consensus rely on the peer review process which is the cornerstone of scientific publications

  • Major areas of concern for the reviewers – relevance and importance of the scientific content with regard to the mission of the journal: novelty, originality, and external and internal validity of the study.

  • Major causes of rejection – flawed study design and methodology, poor discussions and unsupported conclusions, unoriginal, predictable or trivial results, inappropriate data presentation, and poorly organized manuscript.

  • Collective efforts and responsibility of all players of the system – authors, reviewers, and editors in improving the quality of submitted manuscripts.

Science has a culture that is inherently cautious and that is normally not a bad thing. You could even say conservative, because of the peer review process and because the scientific method prizes uncertainty and penalises anyone who goes out on any sort of a limb that is not held in place by abundant and well-documented evidence. – Al Gore

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dermatology and STD, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, India

    Devinder Mohan Thappa & Malathi Munisamy

Authors
  1. Devinder Mohan Thappa
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  2. Malathi Munisamy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Devinder Mohan Thappa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, India

    Subhash Chandra Parija

  2. Department of Surgery, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, India

    Vikram Kate

Scenario

Scenario

Reviewers reviewed your manuscript and they have pointed out major deficiencies in your study to be taken care of. These major revisions relate to:

  1. 1.

    Title not appropriate

  2. 2.

    Aims and objectives not clear

  3. 3.

    Methodology not clearly mentioned

  4. 4.

    Poorly organized flow of presentation of data

  5. 5.

    Tables and graphs inadequate or inappropriate

  6. 6.

    Weak discussion

  7. 7.

    Recent and relevant references not included and not cited in text

How do I go about doing major revisions and resubmission?

  1. (a)

    Agree to all the points raised by reviewers and highlight the changes and resubmit.

  2. (b)

    Agree to some of the points and aggressively put forth your point of view and resubmit.

  3. (c)

    Don’t agree to their point of view and submit the article to another journal.

  4. (d)

    Don’t agree to their point of view and resubmit to the same journal.

  5. (e)

    Politely discuss the points you may agree or may not agree and resubmit the revision.

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Thappa, D.M., Munisamy, M. (2017). What Does a Reviewer Look into a Manuscript. In: Parija, S., Kate, V. (eds) Writing and Publishing a Scientific Research Paper. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4720-6_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4720-6_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-4719-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-4720-6

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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