How to respond to peer review without losing the paper or your temper

First: do not reply the same day

A critical report reads differently after 48 hours. Read it, close it and come back later. Almost everything that looks like an attack turns out to be a poorly worded observation, and almost everything that looks like reviewer misunderstanding is usually a part of your text that was not clear.

The structure of a good response letter

The editor will read your letter with the reports alongside. Make that easy:

1. A short opening paragraph: thank them, summarise the main changes in three lines.
2. Each comment, numbered and quoted. Copy the reviewer’s observation verbatim in italics or in a distinct block.
3. Your reply underneath each one, saying what you did.
4. Where the change is: "page 7, paragraph 2" or "section 3.2, now rewritten". Without this the reviewer has to hunt, and gets annoyed.
5. If the change was textual, paste the new text into the letter. It saves an entire round trip.

The three possible situations

You agree

Make the change and say so in one line. There is no need for effusive thanks at every point: it is repetitive and it makes the letter longer.

You disagree

You may decline a change, but you need to argue it with evidence, not opinion. Cite the literature, show the data, explain the methodological limit. And offer something: if you are not going to run the experiment they ask for, add an explicit limitation in the discussion. A well-founded disagreement with a reasonable concession is usually accepted.

The reviewer misunderstood

That almost always means your text was ambiguous. The right response is not "the reviewer did not read carefully", it is "we thank the reviewer for the observation: the point was not clear and we have rewritten it as follows". And then actually rewrite it.

Mistakes that sink a response

• Answering "we have clarified this" without saying where or how.
• Leaving comments unanswered, even minor ones. The editor will notice.
• Arguing about the reviewer’s tone in the letter. If there was a genuine lack of respect, write to the editor separately.
• Making changes you did not declare in the letter.
• Submitting without a tracked-changes file, if the journal asks for one.

About deadlines

If the deadline is not enough, ask for an extension before it expires. Editors grant extensions readily; what they do not take well is silence.

If the paper is rejected

Rejection is part of the craft, even with good work. Three useful things:

• The comments are still worth having. Apply them before submitting elsewhere: you may well get some of the same reviewers.
• Adapt the manuscript to the new journal’s format. Submitting a text still formatted for the previous one is a visible sign of a chain submission.
• If the rejection was about scope rather than quality, ask the editor for a recommendation. Many will give one.