返修是論文能否成功發表的關鍵,如何提高SCI的中稿概率?


返修是論文能否成功發表的關鍵,如何提高SCI的中稿概率?


返修是論文能否成功發表的關鍵。學科雖有所不同,但撰寫返修稿卻有類似的流程和規律。掌握一些回覆的方法和技巧可以增加審稿人的好感和認同感,提升中稿概率。下面是筆者整理的三篇SCI論文返修內容及講解,希望對各位學人有所助益。

返修是論文能否成功發表的關鍵,如何提高SCI的中稿概率?

SCI、SSCI、EI、ISTP 發表指導


1

如何撰寫返修稿的開頭


作為對編輯和匿名審稿人的整體回覆,一般要在返修的開頭做一個簡單介紹。一方面是概括此輪修改的主要內容,用Firstly, Secondly … Lastly等列示,讓編輯和匿名審稿人清晰地看到你做了什麼樣的回覆,是否是他們所關注的點;另一方面也是表示尊重,比直接答覆問題要更正式和嚴謹。下面是我起始返修稿的一個例子,可以作為模板套用。


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


返修稿答覆格式


答覆的格式因人而異。但是一般有兩種模式:一種是一問一答,將審稿人的問題列示一條、自己答覆一條。但注意要將問題的字體加黑,以示區別。問題要用Q(Question)起頭,答覆要用A(Answer)起頭。另一種是表格形式(如下圖所示),左列是匿名審稿人提出的問題和建議(Comments),右列是自己的回覆(Response to reviewers)。這樣做的好處是簡潔明瞭,便於閱讀,也便於導師提建議和自己的修改。

Comments

Response to reviewers

Comments from the Editor – Dr. XXX


Q1: XXX

A1: XXX

Q2: XXX

A2: XXX


3



有時在匿名審稿人的問題之前,編輯會整合審稿人意見提出要求。這也是需要認真回覆的,因為編輯會根據你的答覆探測你的態度。下面是我第一篇SCI論文的返修問題和答覆,問題很大,審稿人兩次“major revisions”,為此修繕了約40%的內容,基本上算是“脫胎換骨”了。編輯特地留言,擺明兩位審稿人對文章立意和結構的負面態度,並要求大修。回覆包括兩方面內容,一是自己做出哪些修改,以此表明誠意;二是針對兩名匿名審稿人的質疑,擺明自己的態度,甚至指出他們的問題。在審稿人和作者的態度相左時,往往是編輯根據自身經驗和知識做出裁決。


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


對匿名審稿人的回覆


對匿名審稿人的回覆是主體。下面總結了針對正面和負面問題的回覆。

1


對正面評價的回覆


一些審稿人會給予積極評價,這時可以用Thank you,Thank you for your suggestion, Correct等作為回覆。如果認同評價並做了修改,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


對負面評價的回覆


針對負面評價並且自身不認同的,不要直接拒絕,要委婉地回覆,並加以佐證,讓審稿人認識到自己可能是錯的。例如下面的 (R2) (Reviewer 2)審稿人質疑稿件闡述不清晰,就可以回覆已有8位學者瀏覽但無一人認為有這個問題,然後再說盡管如此自己還是做了一些修改。這樣可以讓審稿人開心的跳過這個問題。


(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.


有些問題會對論文的結構提出修改建議。論文結構是靈活的,沒有統一標準,不同的人有不同的傾向和愛好,可以按照審稿人的意見調整。


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.


有些審稿人會針對研究方法做出直接的質疑。在這種情況下,最好的辦法就是列出證據(高水平的期刊論文、書籍或者報告等),證明自己的方法也是正確的。下例的審稿人認為GMM只適合於“大N小T” 面板,我就找到了劍橋大學出版社Econometric Theory期刊的一篇文章,證明“大N大T”也是可以的。這樣的實例他無法反駁,最後給了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.


有些審稿人對文章的貢獻度和創新度提出質疑,認為意義不大,這也是論文返修常見的問題。針對這一類型,作者可以清晰地一條條列示貢獻,說明它們與前人研究結論的不同,以及對未來研究有何益處。下例的審稿人認為文章只是換了模型和數據,沒有明顯的學術貢獻。回覆分為三步,第一是明確闡述文章最大的貢獻是什麼,而之前的學者只是提及而沒有實證,本文進一步做了實證;第二,承認WTR並不是唯一的影響因素,其他因素也有重要影響,並在文中加上了這方面的討論;第三,根據審稿人的建議提出未來研究設想,以此證明本文的研究是有價值的,可以作為未來研究的基礎。為了避免此類問題,一個比較好的辦法是在論文的第一部分(Introduction或者Conclusion)就直接闡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期刊的編輯會在收到投稿後幾天內審核,看文章主題是否符合期刊風格,內容質量是否符合要求。如果通過,就會邀請作者推薦的審稿人或者該領域內高被引學者進行審稿。系統自動生成郵件通知潛在審稿人,如果同意審稿,一般會被要求在一個月內審回;預期未審回的,會有郵件提醒。


審稿人可以看到通訊作者或者其他作者的名字,但是作者們往往看不到是誰在審核他們的文章。也有double-blind,就是彼此都不知道對方的信息。一個審稿人可以看到作者給編輯和其他審稿人的回覆。


審稿過程有可能會出一些問題。比如A同意做審稿人但是到期不回覆,只能再找其他審稿人,時間就耽誤了一兩個月;可能B已經審閱了一輪,但是第二輪拒絕審核,編輯就只能再找其他潛在審稿人,這樣時間又被耽誤了,而且會提出新的問題,相當於多了一輪審稿。我的第一篇SCI論文前前後後三個返修,共耗時11個多月。


有時審稿人不瞭解你的領域但是卻故作高深,問出一些畫蛇添足甚至錯誤的問題,這時只能耐心回覆甚至修改一部分內容,以滿足他們的要求。還有一些審稿人會推薦你引用一些不相關文獻,一查都是同一個作者。這種情況我碰到過三次,見怪不怪了。可以放在Introduction部分,那裡可以引用一些不直接相關的內容。這樣審稿人會樂於推薦你的文章,因為可以提高他們的引用量。


值得一提的是,作者在返修時一定要擺正心態,以一個學生的謙虛姿態去接受建議甚至是批評。返修需要承受一定的心理壓力,有時甚至是痛苦的,因為它本質上是一種自我否定,要親手去修改自己辛辛苦苦寫出來自以為很好的內容。但是不經歷這些,就無法實現學術上的進步。曾花半天時間認真修改一份基金報告,結果基本原封不動的返回給了我,無法接受別人給他的建議,也就很難有進步。審過一篇SCI文稿,因為計量部分過於簡單就把前面的單位根檢驗等步驟放在正文中,刻意佔據了一定篇幅,但是這樣無法體現重點;文章結論只有不到200字的一小段,明顯不符合學術規範,虎頭蛇尾。因此我建議將數據檢驗放到文末的附件(Annex)中;文章結論要大大擴展,結果都沒有修改,我就給了Refusal。


審稿人大都是有豐富寫作經驗的,一看內容就知道你的學術功底、花費了多少心思甚至是寫作的誠意,不要試圖掩蓋,要直面問題。如果錯了,坦白承認並及時更正;如果對了就要據理力爭,但是要有理有據讓人信服,也要注意反駁的技巧和方式。以端正的心態面對返修,經歷兩三次投稿就能積累不少經驗,可以在科研上有所建樹。

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返修是論文能否成功發表的關鍵,如何提高SCI的中稿概率?


返修是論文能否成功發表的關鍵,如何提高SCI的中稿概率?


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