You have submitted your manuscript. Congratulations! Now what?

  • Editorial office checks general requirements
    • Is the topic appropriate for the journal?
    • Is the main finding new, helpful and timely?
    • Is the paper generally well organized and formatted according to author instructions?
  • Sent for peer-review
    • Review times vary greatly
    • If you haven’t received reviewer comments or any other communication about your manuscript in a reasonable amount of time, contact the editorial office for an update
      • Be polite and provide a manuscript number if it was assigned at submission: ““We submitted our paper assigned manuscript ID 2405 on June 1, 1972. We kindly request an update on the status of this paper.”
  • Once collected, all reviewers’ comments, along with any suggestions or instructions from the editorial office, are sent back to corresponding author with instructions on how to proceed with revision
  • Follow instructions for submitting a revision EXACTLY! Some journals will require a copy with tracked changes, showing exactly what has been updated; some require “clean” copy, with no tracked changes visible. Be sure to submit exactly what is required, and by the deadline you are given.
  • Usually, a response letter is required, in which each reviewer and editor comment or suggestion is addressed. It's best to set up this letter very simply and clearly.
    • Be sure that every change to the paper has been noted in the cover letter.

Sample Response to Reviewers

(Date)

Dr. John Smith, Editor in Chief
Medical Journal

Re: Manuscript ID #MJ2020-01-114, Revision

Dear Dr. Smith:

On behalf of my coauthors, we appreciate the opportunity to revise and strengthen our paper. We have added new data and further discussed the implications of our findings. Specific revisions are outlined below.

Reviewer 1, Comment 1: The authors should include a discussion about their work differs from the report by Allgood et al (2018).

Response: We considered the work by Allgood and determined that our methods differed too greatly for proper comparison; thus we did not mention the Allgood work previously. However, we agree that discussing the discrepancy may provide some clarity, and have added several sentences addressing this in the Discussion section.

Reviewer 1, Comment 2: I suggest the authors rerun the data provided in the chart in Figure 2 using a different method.

Response: We thank the reviewer for this comment. We consulted with a biostatistician and have reworked Figure 2, which now demonstrates our results more clearly.

Editorial Office Comments:

Comment 1: References are not in compliance with journal format.

Response: We have carefully reviewed each reference and reformatted as needed.

Again, we wish to thank the editors for the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We hope it now meets journal standards.

Sincerely,
Author M. Jones, MD