Responses

to Journal Submission Reviews1

Examples below are authentic. They represent author responses to referee comments on an article being resubmitted to a research journal for potential
publication. Identifying information has been removed. Titles are pseudonyms rather than titles of actual publications.
Move

Subordinate Steps

Accounting Journal

Marketing Journal

Management Journal

Finance Journal
Thank you for the opportunity to revise
our paper once more for the Journal of
Financial Economics.

Expressing
gratitude

We thank Reviewer A for the

constructive comments on our
manuscript

We would like to thank Reviewer 1 for

the effort and time that he/she put in

We would like to express our sincere

gratitude to you and the reviewers
who provided positive comments and
constructive feedback.

Signaling
attention to
review
comments

We have made every attempt to fully

address these comments in the revised
manuscript

we have addressed all of the

comments offered by Reviewer 1.

We have revised our paper along the

lines outlined by you and the
reviewers.

Claiming
positive
results

and we believe these revisions have

resulted in a significantly improved
manuscript.

We honestly feel that his/her

insightful suggestions helped us in
improving the manuscript

We agree that focusing on

strengthened our manuscript and
allows us to make a greater theoretical
and practical contribution

4a

Describing
organization

NA

NA

NA

Describing
presentation

Reviewer As original comments are

listed below (in italics) followed by our
response to each comment.

Below, we outline how we have

handled each and every one of
Reviewers 1 comments. We reiterate
each suggestion in italics/bold

The following paragraphs summarize

our responses (AR) to the Associate
Editor Comments (AEC) and the
Reviewer Comments (RC).

NA

5a

Repeating
comment

1) Social image theory is used to

develop H1a and b. While I agree staff
auditors attempt to gain approval

I must admit that I do not understand

the first finding. I think the authors
should try to explain it in a better way.

AEC-2: Reviewer 1 complains about the

length of the manuscript.

The authors have done an

extraordinary amount of work to
buttress their assumption that
Notwithstanding the effort, however, I
remain unconvinced.

5b

Evaluating
comment

This is a good point that has lead to a

rewrite of this section of the paper.

We would like to thank the Reviewer

for this comment.

AR-2: As suggested, We agree that

our rather lengthy review limited the
opportunity to expand in other areas.

Your comments made us think more

deeply about backdating ...

5c

Describing specific
revisions

We elaborate on this finding in our

manuscript (please see the 1st full
paragraph on p. 31).

AR-2: we condensed the literature

review on absenteeism and
presenteeism.

We now incorporate this discussion of

the economic consequences of
backdating activities in the revised
document on pp. 9-10 (2.2).

5d

Justifying specific
revisions

given the fact that the O&A index

measures the extent to which behavior
control is exercised (A&O 1987; O&A
1994), then one would expect ...

NA

NA

NA

While we believe we have addressed

the main points of concern,... Our goal,
like yours, is to provide the most
impactful paper we can.

NA

Previewing
content

Responding
to specific
comments

Claiming
solidarity

4b

Specifically, we have removed the

discussion of social image theory We
now rely more heavily on avoidance
behavior.
The psychology literature discussing
this behavior suggests that such
behavior is more related to For
example, V&B (2002)
NA

This table appears in a discussion of responses to reviews for journal submissions on ProsWrite.com.

We are grateful for your careful and

considered comments and have
tried to respond to each of your
comments
We believe the additional empirical
analyses discussed above have helped
... As a result, we believe our revised
manuscript is substantially improved.
Where appropriate, we have grouped
related comments from each referee.