Module 9

Revise

“No one is very happy, which means it’s a good compromise, I suppose.”
— Tyrion Lannister

Receiving a review can be nerve wracking. In some cases, the reviewer doesn’t know you, and therefore will take a more “objective” stance as a reader. Even with friends and peers, they can only see the deliverable and how you convey yourself in that deliverable. There are personality quirks as well. You have all learned how writing is connected to identity. A written peer review means that more of that identity comes through.  In a 2012 issue of Environmental Microbiology, the editors published peer review excerpts. Mind you, these are experts in the field who have spent hundreds of hours on these projects, and here are some of the peer reviewer comments from other experts in the field:

  • This paper is desperate. Please reject it completely and then block the author’s email ID so they can’t use the online system in future.
  • The biggest problem with this manuscript, which has nearly sucked the will to live out of me, is the terrible writing style.
  • I suppose that I should be happy that I don’t have to spend a lot of time reviewing this dreadful paper; however, I am depressed that people are performing such bad science.

Your response to a peer review can often seem like the five stages of grief as articulated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

Even a positive review can make you feel this way:

“What do you mean it’s amazing? It cannot be that amazing.”
“That stupid, lazy reviewer didn’t really read this.”
“Maybe I can send it back to them for another review? Maybe they will offer more advice?”
“I suck. Everything sucks. I don’t want to do all this work. Ugh.”
“Maybe there is something good here.”

Keep the following in mind when reading your reviews and planning your revisions:

  1. They are trying to help you. Yes, some can be critical, mean, seemingly heartless, but everybody wants good stuff. In a peer review situation, the process is about offering honest feedback so that you can more clearly express what you are trying to express. Never confuse the tone or get lost in the anger or depression—remind yourself that they want a strong product as much as you do.
  2. You don’t have to do everything they say. Despite the desire to help you, people still have quirks. Maybe they hate the color pink. Maybe they hate the word moist. Maybe they hate Microsoft Word. The strategy is to prioritize the feedback into things that seem more generalizable and in need of improvement versus what appear to be quirks. If you are in the denial stage, it can feel like everything is a quirk, but read the advice a few times and think as the reader and not as the defensive author.
  3. Get more advice. In a review situation, you will often get multiple reviews. That doesn’t mean those are the only reviews. And sometimes you are going to get conflicting advice. Sometimes asking a peer to help you resolve a conflict or quickly look at a revision is helpful. Don’t overdo this. You have to accept that you will never make everybody happy. But try to address a diverse readership by trying to make a few concessions to appease as many readers as possible.

Reading this week

Design this week

  • Continue to revise your Portfolio
  • Continue to revise your Revision