MODULE 7 Replying to editors and reviewers

Section 1 Criteria for evaluating a scientific article

By Mamadou Lamine Ndiaye (Polytechnic Graduate School of Dakar - UCAD)

and Emma Rochelle-Newall (French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development)

Once your article has been submitted to a scientific journal, the editor will send it to the reviewers. It is very
rare for a journal to accept an article in its initial state when it is first submitted, without any comments or
questions. The reviewers’ assessment is intended to improve the article, make it clearer and increase its
impact. You must therefore take account of all the reviewers’ comments and respond appropriately.

Reviewers’ comments on a scientific article

Scientific journals want to maintain or improve their scientific reputation. This is why it is important for
editors and reviewers to ensure the scientific quality of the articles they publish. Articles are evaluated
based on two main criteria:

the article's scientific contribution and its originality.

the validity of the methodology, experiments and results.

The reviewers will write comments to the authors based on these criteria. In practice, the comments
generally cover two aspects:

the overall impression of the article, focusing on its strengths and the main contributions;

more specific comments on the weaknesses and areas for improvement of your article,
which may concern:

o the substance: i.e. the shortcomings of the article,

o the form,

o minor corrections

o major corrections

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Then the reviewers give their initial verdict. This is either:
a proposal to accept your article subject to you making the requested corrections to address
the shortcomings deemed recoverable;
immediate rejection of your article due to inadequacies deemed irrecoverable.

Comments from editors and reviewers should be a source of motivation for authors. If the article is not
rejected after the first round, it is because the reviewers considered that it had potential.

Reasons for rejecting an article,

We will now look at the main reasons for rejection. An article will be rejected if:
It lacks originality: if it offers nothing new scientifically or methodologically, It has already been
published elsewhere or if one or more similar articles already exist;
It does not fit with the themes of the journal: irrelevant articles are systematically rejected;
It does not follow the Instructions for Authors provided by the journal;
There are too many problems with the content. For example, the literary review is weak, the
experimentation is not thorough enough or the data size and use of statistical tools are insufficient.
There are too many problems with the layout. For example, the title is inappropriate, the research
question is poorly formulated, the theoretical framework is badly presented, tables and figures are
not referenced in the text, or if the text contains too many spelling or grammar mistakes, ambiguous
sentences or is too difficult to understand.
The article will also be rejected if the “Materials and Methods” section does not allow the work to
be reproduced.
Lastly, the article will be rejected if the bibliographic references are not recent, are incomplete
or contain errors. Remember that all references in the text must correspond to a reference in the
bibliography and vice versa.

Conclusion
In this section, we have looked the criteria for evaluation by reviewers and the reasons for rejection of an
article, as well as the mistakes authors should avoid to increase the chances of their work being accepted. In
the next section, we will explain how to respond to reviewers' comments appropriately.