How to respond to reviewer comments

A "revise & resubmit" decision means the editor sees a path to acceptance with revisions. Your job is to make the revisions clearly and respond to each reviewer comment in turn.

Submit two things

1. A revised manuscript with all changes incorporated. Many authors find it helpful to also include a tracked-changes / highlighted copy.
2. A response letter addressing every reviewer comment.

Anatomy of the response letter

For each reviewer comment:

1. Quote the comment (this lets the editor and reviewers find their place quickly).
2. Your response — what you did, or why you didn't make the requested change.
3. The exact location of the change in the revised manuscript (page/section/line) and an excerpt from this location, demonstrating the change.

Keep the response letter anonymous

Double-blind review applies to revisions too. The response letter must not identify you, your institution, or your colleagues — do not refer to yourself by name ("As Dr. Smith mentioned in our previous paper…"), don't name your institution, and don't reveal funder identities. Use third-person or anonymised references throughout, and anonymise any IRB / preregistration / data-repository links in the same way you did in the manuscript.

When to push back

You're allowed to disagree with a reviewer. If you do:

• Be respectful.
• Cite evidence — a paragraph in your data, a published reference, a methodological standard.
• Suggest a middle path where possible (a clarifying sentence, a footnote).