Readers 1, Readers 2, Readers All

Feedback can really suck. And it can be energizing and inspiring. Either way, it can be incredibly helpful in developing our scholarship and producing strong, effective manuscripts for publication, once we take it in and have time to process and respond to it. Luckily for academics, we have this thing called readers — formal, informal; helpful, and not.

Just as people are different, the readers will be different and some of their suggestions might seem — or be — contradictory. Let’s be real: Reader reports are part of gatekeeping, and it is worthwhile to keep that in mind. But they are also designed, fundamentally, to be helpful — to the commissioning/journal editor and to you, the writer-scholar.

I know it often doesn’t feel that way, especially if a report seems overly harsh or close-minded (the fabled Reader 2), but they are, if you can use them this way, key, generous moments of engagement in your scholarship and writing from scholars and colleagues, potential or established, possible friends or collaborators down the road.

So here are some tips for approaching them in that spirit, while keeping your own authority and ownership of your writing, your scholarship, and your preferred means of presenting it.

Use the editor’s summary as a guide for what to focus on.

When clients come to me for help implementing reader report feedback, one of the first things I ask is, what did their contact highlight in the feedback email and how did they do it?

Commissioning editors are very good at summarizing the main points they see across the reports, emphasizing one or two elements over the others, and often providing tips for how to address the comments.

They might also give you a heads-up about which reader report they most agree with or might be best to align your revisions with. And they often tip you off to how to make your piece work better for their journal or press series.

These summaries are, to my mind, the most helpful part of the correspondence, and we can use them to guide us as we go through your reports. Also, keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to implement everything the editor’s summary talks about, and you can always ask questions for clarity or further direction. Commissioning editors are busy people, but they want pieces to succeed as well.

Rank the scope and importance of the feedback.

We all know this: not all feedback is created equal, or with equally helpful or germane purpose. When you read through your reports, note the levels the feedback works on. What is about larger-scope issues, such as topic, claim, argumentation, self-positioning within your field? What is more micro, like sentence style, word choice, suggestions for further reading or citation? Or even line edits from reviewers about specific moments in your manuscript.

Maybe make a two-column chart (big and small issues) and place key feedback in each column. This will give you a clear sense of the type of feedback you have to sort through and thus the extent of revisions and time for revision you might need, to answer the points.

The next step is to evaluate qualitatively what is most important to implement — from your own perspective, maybe even that editor’s summary, or colleague feedback too.

Make a list of those elements and then break down their scope: how long it might take you to address those concerns and how much work each will take, perhaps in research or more thought. These are the things to focus on first, or to use to determine your work timeline. Those smaller or less relevant feedback points you can either keep for later or perhaps work through on days when you aren’t up for the deeper thought or revision work.

Find commonalities.

It is easy to get lost in the details of each report and to feel, at least at first, that each reader is asking for entirely different things, at different levels of engagement, and you’re going to be pulled in many directions at once. Sometimes that this absolutely true. And in these moments, going back to my first two suggestions can help.

Usually, though, we can find commonalities across at least most of the reports that we can focus on. They might be phrased differently, or even point out different things, but often readers are picking up on the same features in your manuscript, even if they are responding according to their own specialty or approaches.

While it might seem like Reader 1 has one vision for your manuscript and Reader 2 wants something entirely different, often those are less demands than attempts to be helpful and provide suggestions for how to implement improvements. Not that it feels any less confusing.

Here again, I’m a fan of using columns: one column for each reviewer. (I really love a good chart.) I go through the reports and note in keywords the points each reviewer makes. Then I can look across the columns and see clearly what repeats and what doesn’t.

Those commonalities tell me what to focus on, and then from those, I can see more clearly how the suggestions for revision might be responding to that commonality. Then you can decide which option works best for you, or which combination of suggestions. Or maybe they will inspire a new way to address the issues, or develop the really good things that, hopefully, reviewers have also pointed out.

You don’t need to agree with everything or implement all suggestions.

Ultimately, this is your writing, your scholarship, and your ideas. Reader reports, like all other forms of feedback you might solicit, are designed to help you develop your manuscript and scholarship into a better, stronger piece of writing within the expectations, genres, and codes of the audience this publishing apparatus is designed for. At their best, they are undertaken from a position of generosity, and at our best, we can receive them and respond to them that way (maybe after the first overwhelm and sting, sometimes).

But that doesn’t mean — and I cannot stress this enough — that you have to agree with all points readers make or even their take on your scholarly project. You don’t need to implement all suggestions, and some of them will be outside the scope of your project, seem fundamentally off-base to you, or not necessary at this time.

Don’t be afraid to decide what you don’t want to use or revise with. Just be realistic about what you can get away with not doing and check yourself to make sure that you are making these choices because they are what is best for your writing, the best you can.

Choose your hill to die on, and then manage not to blow it up.

When you set about envisioning your revisions, choose what speaks to you and leave what doesn’t. Be strategic about it, for your scholarship and your hopes to be published in this arena, and don’t be defensive about it. Ideally you want a pleasant, productive ongoing relationship with the journal, press, reviewers, and people in between, even when you disagree in this particular moment.

You might feel strongly about some of the feedback, especially when you think it’s off-base or misunderstands your scholarship. Use that reaction to help clarify your own thinking and presentation of the material so that future readers (or this one again in R&R) will understand your point more or be more persuaded, or still disagree with you while being more convinced of the scholarly value of your claim and argumentation.

When you go to write your response to reader comments, highlight what was especially useful and how you are incorporating that feedback and also let them know what you have chosen not to implement and why. Again, do this strategically and generously.

You can say no, but let’s make it a “no, thanks.”

If you can, respond in those moments like one friendly colleague to another and explain not why the thing is wrong for you or totally misunderstands your writing, but perhaps what it has shown you about one way to read your claim or one other way to argue this and how that has helped you hone your own position. If you get further pushback, then maybe it is time to escalate the intensity of your position or it could also be time to reconsider your own evaluation of the value of their feedback.

No matter how your reports come back and you feel about them, peer review (formal and informal) can be one of the best tools for developing your own work. It can help you make sure your work is appropriately careful and engaging in its scholarship and broad and accessible in its appeal.

You want your stuff to be read. And people want to read it. Think of this as one more step to help that turn out the best way possible. Even when it’s hard to keep that in mind.