如何提高SCI的中稿概率?点击查收高质量论文返修经验

从论文成稿到论文送审、发表的路是漫长的,而返修也是论文能否成功发表的关键环节。学科虽有所不同,但撰写返修稿却有类似的流程和规律。掌握一些回复的方法和技巧可以增加审稿人的好感和认同感,提升中稿概率。

下面是本文作者shaoqinglong11整理的三篇SCI论文返修内容及讲解,希望对各位有所助益。


1

如何撰写返修稿的开头


作为对编辑和匿名审稿人的整体回复,一般要在返修的开头做一个简单介绍。一方面是概括此轮修改的主要内容,用Firstly, Secondly … Lastly等列示,让编辑和匿名审稿人清晰地看到你做了什么样的回复,是否是他们所关注的点;另一方面也是表示尊重,比直接答复问题要更正式和严谨。下面是我起始返修稿的一个例子,可以作为模板套用。


Dear Dr. XXX,

Dear Members of the Editorial Team,


We appreciate the opportunity to modify our paper according to the critical comments of three reviewers. We now provide an argument for and explanation of the choice to represent XXX by a binary rather than a metric variable and discuss the implications of the results on the auxiliary socio-economic variables in more detail. In response to the comments made by both reviewers on the conclusions we have substantially re-written that section of the manuscript, eliminating redundancies to previously stated results and providing more of an outlook on the meaning and importance of our findings as well as on future research opportunities. Please find our detailed replies to the reviewers’ specific comments below.


Thank you for handling our submission.


Best Regards,

XXX, XXX….


2

返修稿答复格式


答复的格式因人而异。但是一般有两种模式:一种是一问一答,将审稿人的问题列示一条、自己答复一条。但注意要将问题的字体加黑,以示区别。问题要用Q(Question)起头,答复要用A(Answer)起头。另一种是表格形式(如下图所示),左列是匿名审稿人提出的问题和建议(Comments),右列是自己的回复(Response to reviewers)。这样做的好处是简洁明了,便于阅读,也便于导师提建议和自己的修改。

 

Comments

Response to reviewers

Comments from the Editor – Dr. XXX


Q1: XXX

A1: XXX

Q2: XXX

A2: XXX


3

对于编辑的回复


有时在匿名审稿人的问题之前,编辑会整合审稿人意见提出要求。这也是需要认真回复的,因为编辑会根据你的答复探测你的态度。下面是我第一篇SCI论文的返修问题和答复,问题很大,审稿人两次“major revisions”,为此修缮了约40%的内容,基本上算是“脱胎换骨”了。编辑特地留言,摆明两位审稿人对文章立意和结构的负面态度,并要求大修。回复包括两方面内容,一是自己做出哪些修改,以此表明诚意;二是针对两名匿名审稿人的质疑,摆明自己的态度,甚至指出他们的问题。在审稿人和作者的态度相左时,往往是编辑根据自身经验和知识做出裁决。


Editor


(Editor (E)) I have now received all reviews for your paper. As you will see, two of the reviewers have very serious reservations about the paper, although they see the topic - 'XXX' - as one that deserves study, and that fits well with the theme of the special issue. Based on the comments, which are appended to the end of this letter, I ask that you undertake major revisions and resubmit the revised manuscript for further consideration.

 

((Authors) (A)) Thank you. We have undertaken major revisions and the article now has a slightly modified title, a new introduction, a re-arrangement in the sequence of sections and about 40% new text (below we explain the substance of the changes). Let us note also that while the reviewers demanded significant changes to the motivation and structure of the paper (including the selection of case-studies), they did not question the core of our main arguments, with the exception of our argument that XXX could be understood as a “dialectical” utopia, which we have decided to leave out (see below).


4

对匿名审稿人的回复


对匿名审稿人的回复是主体。下面总结了针对正面和负面问题的回复。 

1
对正面评价的回复

一些审稿人会给予积极评价,这时可以用Thank you,Thank you for your suggestion, Correct等作为回复。如果认同评价并做了修改,可以直接回答Done(已完成)


(R1) This essay offers a fascinating and well-written analysis of XXX, a largely European social movement that seeks an alternative to capitalist socio-ecological relations. The piece is particularly interesting, and its arguments and conclusions particularly compelling, by virtue of the ways in which the author(s) weave together a consideration of XXX as an actually existing political movement alongside a view of XXX as political imaginary via the utopian sci-fi of Ursula Le Guin.


(A) Thank you, this was precisely our intention, we are happy that it comes out clear.


(R1) As an aside, however, I encourage the author(s) to drop the use of TD as an acronym for her novel. Oh, the horror of it! There's something profoundly depressing about submitting to the reductive imperative of the social sciences acronym here. AVOID! This is a convention of social science you should reject.


(A) Done


Q:Thank you for your constructive engagement with my previous comments, as well as those of the other reviewers. I do not have further substantive comments on this revision, which I feel addresses my comments well. However, it still requires a detailed copy edit from a native English speaker. I appreciate you say this has been done, but I am afraid the result is far from ideal as there are still many grammatical issues throughout.


A: Thank you for your positive consideration of the paper. Another reviewer also raised the question of copy editing. We have revised the grammar problems and examined the draft text with the support of a Native English Editor. 

2
对负面评价的回复

针对负面评价并且自身不认同的,不要直接拒绝,要委婉地回复,并加以佐证,让审稿人认识到自己可能是错的。例如下面的 (R2) (Reviewer 2)审稿人质疑稿件阐述不清晰,就可以回复已有8位学者浏览但无一人认为有这个问题,然后再说尽管如此自己还是做了一些修改。这样可以让审稿人开心的跳过这个问题。


(R2) In principle, the subject as well as the selected approach is very interesting, but unfortunately the manuscript exhibits considerable weaknesses and in several places appears confusing to the reader.


(A) We are sorry to hear this. We had tested the article with 8 external reviewers before submitting and we didn't receive a comment about confusion. We take your concern seriously though and as a result have restructured radically the article, by removing the CIC case, and rearranging the sections accordingly. The improved contextualization within XXX debates should improve readability.  


有些问题会对论文的结构提出修改建议。论文结构是灵活的,没有统一标准,不同的人有不同的倾向和爱好,可以按照审稿人的意见调整。


Q: A manuscript layout review is needed; reorganize and merge sections 4 and 5 since they are both about discussion and results.


A: Thank you for your suggestion. To make the structure more logic and clear, we spilt section 4.2 into two parts: section 4.2 Empirical results and section 5 Discussion. The former objectively describe the empirical results of Table 4, and the latter focused on discussion of the findings. Further, we distinguish section 5 Discussion and section 6 Conclusions, in that references are needed to support our viewpoints in Discussion part, and Conclusions part is generally the summary of the whole paper, including methods, findings, contributions and future prospects.


有些审稿人会针对研究方法做出直接的质疑。在这种情况下,最好的办法就是列出证据(高水平的期刊论文、书籍或者报告等),证明自己的方法也是正确的。下例的审稿人认为GMM只适合于“大N小T” 面板,我就找到了剑桥大学出版社Econometric Theory期刊的一篇文章,证明“大N大T”也是可以的。这样的实例他无法反驳,最后给了Accept。


Q:While the authors have done work to address the reviewer concerns, I still have some issues with the methods and a major concern regarding the contribution of the paper. I don't think GMM is the most appropriate method. GMM is best for large N, small T; however, the current data is large N, large T.


A: Thank you. We understand your concern on the method. The GMM method is more suitable for large N, small T, and our research is large N and large T. However, it still makes sense, according to Kazuhiko Hayakawa`s paper ‘The Asymptotic Properties of the System GMM Estimator in Dynamic Panel Data Models When Both N and T are Large’, Volume 31 / Issue 03 / June 2015, pp 647-667, Econometric Theory (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9700521&fileId=S0266466614000449).


In this paper, he considered the asymptotic properties of system GMM estimators when both N and T are large. By using Monte Carlo experiments, he found that system GMM estimator using the sub-optimal weighting matrix is still consistent even when T is large, and using redundant moment conditions could improve efficiency in both small and large T cases. These results indicate that estimator originally developed for large N and small T panel data is also usable for large N and large T panel data.


有些审稿人对文章的贡献度和创新度提出质疑,认为意义不大,这也是论文返修常见的问题。针对这一类型,作者可以清晰地一条条列示贡献,说明它们与前人研究结论的不同,以及对未来研究有何益处。下例的审稿人认为文章只是换了模型和数据,没有明显的学术贡献。回复分为三步,第一是明确阐述文章最大的贡献是什么,而之前的学者只是提及而没有实证,本文进一步做了实证;第二,承认WTR并不是唯一的影响因素,其他因素也有重要影响,并在文中加上了这方面的讨论;第三,根据审稿人的建议提出未来研究设想,以此证明本文的研究是有价值的,可以作为未来研究的基础。为了避免此类问题,一个比较好的办法是在论文的第一部分(Introduction或者Conclusion)就直接阐明自己的文章做了哪些Contributions。


Q:My main concern is whether/how the paper contributes to the WTR or broader environment literature…. From some of the discussion on Page 23, it seems that the WTR literature has already come to that conclusion. I don't think demonstrating that ambiguity with a slightly different model and dataset is much of a contribution.… I would urge the authors to refocus the paper in order to answer one of those two questions.


A: Thank you for the comment and for interesting suggestions on research questions. In our view, and building on previous WTR literature, the most important contribution of this paper is to show that XXX. To our knowledge, prior scholars such as XXX (2013) have discussed this problem, but no one proved it to date.


Obviously, WTR is not the only factor with impacts on the environment. Although it is the topic of our analysis, we should acknowledge and address this question more clearly and openly in the paper, that is, other factors also show significant effects on the environment…. We specified this in the last part of the text.


We truly appreciate the questions suggested. They have given us new ideas for further research that we will certainly explore in the future. Still, we consider them to lead us a bit too far from our original research concern for this paper, and we prefer not to make them explicit in the paper. Honouring the reviewer’s effort to provide us with useful food for thought, we offer next our views on how these two questions could be possibly answered, and the contact points with the work in the paper….


一般SCI期刊的编辑会在收到投稿后几天内审核,看文章主题是否符合期刊风格,内容质量是否符合要求。如果通过,就会邀请作者推荐的审稿人或者该领域内高被引学者进行审稿。系统自动生成邮件通知潜在审稿人,如果同意审稿,一般会被要求在一个月内审回;预期未审回的,会有邮件提醒。


审稿人可以看到通讯作者或者其他作者的名字,但是作者们往往看不到是谁在审核他们的文章。也有double-blind,就是彼此都不知道对方的信息。一个审稿人可以看到作者给编辑和其他审稿人的回复。


审稿过程有可能会出一些问题。比如A同意做审稿人但是到期不回复,只能再找其他审稿人,时间就耽误了一两个月;可能B已经审阅了一轮,但是第二轮拒绝审核,编辑就只能再找其他潜在审稿人,这样时间又被耽误了,而且会提出新的问题,相当于多了一轮审稿。我的第一篇SCI论文前前后后三个返修,共耗时11个多月。


有时审稿人不了解你的领域但是却故作高深,问出一些画蛇添足甚至错误的问题,这时只能耐心回复甚至修改一部分内容,以满足他们的要求。还有一些审稿人会推荐你引用一些不相关文献,一查都是同一个作者。这种情况我碰到过三次,见怪不怪了。可以放在Introduction部分,那里可以引用一些不直接相关的内容。这样审稿人会乐于推荐你的文章,因为可以提高他们的引用量。


值得一提的是,作者在返修时一定要摆正心态,以一个学生的谦虚姿态去接受建议甚至是批评。返修需要承受一定的心理压力,有时甚至是痛苦的,因为它本质上是一种自我否定,要亲手去修改自己辛辛苦苦写出来自以为很好的内容。但是不经历这些,就无法实现学术上的进步。曾花半天时间认真修改一份基金报告,结果基本原封不动的返回给了我,无法接受别人给他的建议,也就很难有进步。审过一篇SCI文稿,因为计量部分过于简单就把前面的单位根检验等步骤放在正文中,刻意占据了一定篇幅,但是这样无法体现重点;文章结论只有不到200字的一小段,明显不符合学术规范,虎头蛇尾。因此我建议将数据检验放到文末的附件(Annex)中;文章结论要大大扩展,结果都没有修改,我就给了Refusal。


审稿人大都是有丰富写作经验的,一看内容就知道你的学术功底、花费了多少心思甚至是写作的诚意,不要试图掩盖,要直面问题。如果错了,坦白承认并及时更正;如果对了就要据理力争,但是要有理有据让人信服,也要注意反驳的技巧和方式。以端正的心态面对返修,经历两三次投稿就能积累不少经验,可以在科研上有所建树。