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Writing with Feedback on a Manuscript
Using editor and reviewer feedback usually means using the same techniques you'd use when revising with instructor or peer feedback: rewrite, make a checklist, prioritize. Writers can get a sense of what feedback is asking them to do in revisions by rewriting the feedback in their own words; making a checklist of action items helps organize the feedback and pull out concrete tasks; and prioritizing checklist items according to importance helps writers create a structure for revising that makes sense for their priorities.
The difficulty with scholarly manuscript revisions is often that there are multiple sets of feedback from different reviewers, which can sometimes conflict. Editors often help prioritize comments from multiple reviewers by describing comments and giving more weight to some or specifically recommending disregarding others. If they don't, you can compare reviewer feedback and make your own best judgments about which revisions you'll make and which you won't. Criteria include fit in the journal or the discipline, appropriateness for the argument you're making, etc.; ultimately writers should remember that while peer reviewers are a valuable resource for developing scholarship, they are not the authors of your piece. You are!
Finally, make a list of changes you're planning to make after reviewing the feedback and share them with the editor — editors are often also resources to help you, since they know the journal best and are usually expert in the field.
Negotiating Conflicting Feedback
Sometimes reviewer feedback may differ significantly, creating challenges for writers revising their manuscripts. When feedback conflicts, there are a few particular strategies you can use to find a way forward:
- Ask the editor.
- Ask a colleague or mentor.
- Look for a middle ground.
- Take emotion out of it.
Prioritizing Feedback
Regardless of whether reviewers share the same opinion, writers will need to determine which changes are most important and which changes should be addressed first. Here are some strategies for prioritizing feedback:
- Divide tasks into higher and lower order concerns.
- Of the higher order concerns, determine which need multiple rounds of revision.
- Check with the editor.
Responding to Feedback
Once writers have made a plan for revision, it's time to execute the plan. Here are some tips for keeping feedback and the review process in mind during revisions:
- Use MS Word's Track Changes or a similar feature to visually link comments, action items, and relevant areas of the manuscript. If you're writing collaboratively, most word processing programs now allow you to tag a specific person in a comment and assign them tasks.
- Keep a running log of changes using your changes list; usually this list includes: 1. the comment, summarized; 2. the original, perhaps shortened and usually with a location by page number or section; and 3. the revision, always with a location and sometimes shortened. This will help you with your letter when you submit the revised manuscript, and it will help keep track of what you have addressed to date.
- Note in comments or in your change log any questions you have or alternate revisions you considered. This will help the editor and/or reviewers go over the new version of the manuscript, and can save you time if you're asked for more revisions.
- If you are making a number of sentence-level changes, it may be most expedient to complete these changes with Word's markup on or in suggestion mode (Google Docs) — this way you aren't listing each tense change you made in a separate document, and the editor/reviewers can quickly see locations where you edited or revised.
Once revisions are done and you re-submit your manuscript, you'll usually need to include a letter describing what you changed, comment by comment. This is where these tips to help you keep a detailed account of your revision process will come in handy — you'll be able to use your own documentation as part of this letter.
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- APA Style (7th Edition)
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- In-Text Citations: The Basics
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- APA Style (6th Edition)
- APA Style Introduction
- APA Overview and Workshop
- APA Formatting and Style Guide (6th Edition)
- General Format
- In-Text Citations: The Basics
- In-Text Citations: Author/Authors
- Footnotes and Endnotes
- Reference List: Basic Rules
- Reference List: Author/Authors
- Reference List: Articles in Periodicals
- Reference List: Books
- Reference List: Other Print Sources
- Reference List: Electronic Sources
- Reference List: Other Non-Print Sources
- Additional Resources
- Types of APA Papers
- APA Stylistics: Avoiding Bias
- APA Stylistics: Basics
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- APA Tables and Figures 1
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- APA Abbreviations
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- General APA FAQs
- Using Citation Generators Responsibly
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- Style Manual Glossary
- Avoiding Plagiarism
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- Conducting an Interview Presentation
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- Preventing Plagiarism
- Preventing Plagiarism Introduction
- Contextualizing Plagiarism
- Contextualizing Plagiarism
- Truth or Consequences
- Handout: Truth or Consequences
- The Big Picture
- Authorship and Popular Plagiarism
- Copyright and Plagiarism
- Handout: Copyright and Plagiarism
- Collaborative Authorship
- Handout: Collaborative Authorship
- Defining Our Terms
- Class Plagiarism Policy
- Comparing Policies
- Handout: Comparing Policies
- Avoiding Plagiarism
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- Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting
- Peer Summarizing
- Anonymous Paraphrasing
- Paraphrasing from Media
- Handout: Paraphrasing from Media
- Using In-text Citations
- Handout: Using In-text Citations
- Quoting Others
- Handout: Quoting Others
- Summary, Paraphrase, and Quotation in Context
- Handout: Summary, Paraphrase, and Quotation in Context
- Translingual Writing
- Writing in the Engineering Classroom
- Why Include Writing in Engineering Courses?
- Using Bloom’s Taxonomy
- Types of Writing Assignments for Engineering Courses
- Conceptual Writing Prompts
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- Research Team
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- Introduction to Graduate Writing
- Graduate Writing Topics
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- Professional, Technical Writing Introduction
- Workplace Writers
- Effective Workplace Writing
- Audience Analysis
- Prioritizing Your Concerns for Effective Business Writing
- Parallel Structure
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- HATS: A Design Procedure for Routine Business Documents
- Basic Business Letters
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- Four Point Action Closing
- Grant Writing
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- Technical Reports & Report Abstracts
- White Papers
- Revision in Business Writing
- Business Writing for Administrative and Clerical Staff
- Writing in Literature
- Writing in Literature Introduction
- Writing About Film
- Literary Terms
- Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism
- Introduction to Literary Theory
- Moral Criticism, Dramatic Construction
- Formalism
- Psychoanalytic Criticism
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- Structuralism and Semiotics
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- Writing About Fiction
- Writing About Literature
- Writing in Literature (Detailed Discussion)
- Professional, Technical Writing