book cover for Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
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doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa3

ISBN: 978-1-951414-04-7

September 2020

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September 2020

Chapter 28 illustrates the peer-review process as a dialogue between colleagues—an exchange that shapes us and that we can, in turn, shape. This chapter addresses ways to make sense of reviewer comments, offers suggestions for revising your work and responding to editors, and addresses how to deal with rejection.

Discussion Questions

In making sense of reviewers’ comments, a key step is reading across the reviews to understand:

  1. How do you think you will respond to a rejection decision?
  2. Whom in your support network can you contact if you get a rejection decision?
  3. If revisions are requested, what changes are reviewers arguing for in your work?
  4. Are any of these requested changes at odds? Do any overlap?

Then you may want to decide a few things for yourself and with any co-authors:

  1. Can you see how making the suggested changes will enhance your paper?
  2. Are some requests moving the work in a direction you are not comfortable with?
  3. Are some requests unclear to you?
  4. Do some requests seem irrelevant, because you have addressed them elsewhere in the paper or because the requests are more comments rather than suggested changes, for example?
  5. How, and to what extent, will you retain the integrity of your text while also responding to the reviewers’ comments?