In academic writing, a request to “revise and resubmit” can generate both elation and exasperation. Elation in the sense that the paper hasn’t been rejected. And exasperation in the sense that there’s still more (and sometimes a lot more) work to be done.
In most cases, an R&R will come with a set of comments from reviewers and sometimes feedback from the editors, as well. Those comments, in turn, may be fairly brief, totaling only a few paragraphs, or they be may extensive, continuing on for pages and pages in sum. Those comments may also be helpful, with explicit (and not contradictory) recommendations for improving the paper, or they may be less helpful, offering either critiques without explicit recommendations for improvement or recommendations that contradict across reviews. And of course, those comments may be positive and kind, or they may be harsh and demeaning to you and/or your work.
If the feedback you get from reviewers is extensive or harsh or unhelpful, it’s easy to feel discouraged—to feel as though revising the paper presents an impossible task. Ultimately, though, it’s important not to ignore the reviewers’ comments as you work through revising your paper. Making a good-faith effort at addressing each of the reviewers’ concerns (or, in some cases, explaining clearly why you won’t or can’t follow a specific recommendation from a reviewer) can give you a better shot at getting the paper through to acceptance, or in some cases to another R&R.
I offer recommendations for responding to an R&R (or a second or third R&R) in A Field Guide to Grad School, but I figured it would also be helpful to share an examples of papers that went through a fairly extensive set of reviews, revisions, and resubmissions.
My hope is that, by sharing all the draft versions and reviews of these papers, I can give readers, especially grad student readers, a better sense of how the sausage is made. And it’s important to understand how messy and frustrating that process can be. Because it’s easy to look at a final, published piece of academic writing and feel discouraged if your own draft writing isn’t as clear or concise or hard-hitting. But that’s not the standard you should be judging your early drafts against. And it’s important to know that even papers that start off far from perfect can end up getting published in the end.
The first paper I’ll share, Coached for the Classroom: Parents’ Cultural Transmission and Children’s Reproduction of Educational Inequalities, was published in the American Sociological Review in 2014. Before that, though, it went through two R&Rs and then a received a “conditional accept” with a request for further (and fairly extensive) changes from the editors.
The second paper I’ll share is ‘I Need Help!’ Social Class and Children’s Help-Seeking in Elementary School, which was published in the American Sociological Review in 2011. This paper got an initial R&R and then was conditionally accepted after that.