As an author, how do I respond to reviewer comments and upload a revised manuscript (resubmission/revision of a manuscript)?

As an author you can use your author homepage to re-upload a revised manuscript based on comments made by the editor and reviewers. In addition to the revised manuscript, you must also provide a numbered point-by-point response to the reviewer's comments, as well as the title, abstract, and keywords for the manuscript.

This article contains the following:

• How to prepare your revised manuscript and respond to editor/reviewer comments.
• How to upload your revised manuscript.
• How to determine the deadline for your revised manuscript/response (and what to do if the deadline has passed).
• What to do if you did not receive the email with editor/reviewer comments. 

Remember: The manuscript must adhere to appropriate article type formats (e.g., word count, quantity of references, number of tables/figures, etc) throughout the peer review process and at the time of acceptance. If the manuscript exceeds the stated formatting above, then the APF for the applicable article type based on format will be applied (e.g., if the manuscript was submitted as a Research Letter but then is lengthened to an Original Research Paper during revisions, then the applicable APF will be applied). See: JMIR Publications Fee Schedule.

1. Prepare Your Manuscript

Have you completed all of the following before submitting your revised manuscript?

• Revise the manuscript based on the comments made by all peer reviewers and the editor. See the next section for additional guidance.
• Prepare your manuscript and response offline using a text editor (such as Word). Do not use any text formatting, except for section headers and sub-headers of the manuscript.
• Prepare a "point-by-point" response to all the editor and reviewer concerns/queries raised. 
• Upload a revised version with tracked changes (or highlighted sections of text where changes were made). Authors will upload this file as a supplementary file along with the clean version of the manuscript (e.g., in the section entitled "Other Files (Not for Publication)".
• Upload a clean copy of the manuscript, with all changes incorporated. This is a clean version that authors upload under "Revised MS".

Supplying all items above during the author revision stage of manuscript review facilitates the review process. Absence of any one of these items may delay the process. 

2. Respond to Comments from the Reviewers and Editor

When submitting a revised manuscript, authors are are required to submit a numbered "point-by-point" response to all the editor and reviewer comments.

While a response is required for each point, if the authors disagree with a reviewer comment, the authors may choose not to revise the manuscript in response to a specific comment. However, it is expected that the authors should provide an appropriate explanation of their disagreement with the reviewer and decision not to make revisions for that particular comment. Consider that the editor makes the final decision, not the reviewers. 

Format a Response

Number your responses and make sure each response is associated with a specific reviewer.

For example, if you have 3 items mentioned by reviewer "A", mark your responses with A1, A2, and A3.

In each item, first quote the editor/reviewer, then write a response. Please indicate that it is a response by beginning with the text: "RESPONSE: ...".

Unable to Address Reviewer Comments

If you are unable or unwilling to address any of the comments, please state the reason why in your point-by-point response to the comments (i.e., "Change was not made because..."). If the reviewer and author differ, the editor determines the next step and final decision.

3. Resubmit (Upload) a Revised Manuscript

Once you have revised your manuscript and prepared your response to the reviewer comments, you can now resubmit the revised manuscript. 

To resubmit a revised manuscript:

1. Go to your author homepage. 
    
2. Select awaiting author revision in the Status column for the manuscript you are resubmitting.
3. (REQUIRED) Upload all new supplementary material such as figures, appendices, etc. This is only required if the supplementary files have changed since they were last uploaded.
4. (REQUIRED) Upload a revised version with tracked changes (or highlighted sections of text where changes were made). Upload this file as a supplementary file in the section entitled "Other Files (Not for Publication)". Providing this file can substantially improve the quality and speed of re-review by peer reviewers and the editor.
5. (REQUIRED) In the section labeled 4. UPLOAD MANUSCRIPT, upload your clean (no tracked changes) revised manuscript.
   Please make sure the file is either a .doc or .docx Word file. We cannot accept PDF, LaTeX, or PAGES files.
6. (REQUIRED) Copy & paste your numbered point-by-point response to editorial and reviewer comments into the box labeled Respond to editorial and peer review comments.
7. Insert your title, abstract, and keywords based on editor feedback. Some article types require structured abstracts; authors should ensure that they have structured the abstract or provided an abstract appropriately. See also: What are the article types for JMIR Publications journals?
8. Once you are finished, select Submit.

After submitting your revision, please make sure we received it by looking for a confirmation email and verifying that the status has changed from "Awaiting revision" to "In review" on your author homepage. 

You can learn more at: Did you receive our manuscript or manuscript revision? 

Contact Editor with No Manuscript

It is possible to only send a message to the editor without uploading a new manuscript.

To do so, navigate to the page where you upload the manuscript and scroll down to 5. CONTACT EDITOR.

Once there, select Contact Editor to send a message to the editor for your manuscript.

Please do not send another message if you just uploaded a manuscript that included a message for the editor.

4. Transfer Options

Reviewers or editors may have suggested other JMIR Publications journals. Please indicate a ranking of these journals by order of preference, for a potential transfer if the paper is rejected from the current journal.

Note that the editor may reject the paper even if reviews are positive, if no journal preferences are entered, if the paper is out of scope or not strong enough for the journal it was submitted to. See also Why has my article been transferred to another journal (or a transfer has been suggested), and what are my options? for more information on transfers.

5. Revision Deadline

There is a deadline to submit the manuscript revision. The length of the deadline depends on the reviewer decision for the manuscript:

• Decision B (minor revisions) = 1 week deadline
• Decision C (revisions required) = 3 week deadline
• Decision D (major revisions required) = 4 week deadline

From time to time, the deadlines may be shortened by the editor if it is determined that a shorter timeline to submission may be more appropriate. 

Deadline Extension

If you believe you will be unable to make the deadline, or have missed the deadline, please contact us for a deadline extension. For the process to request a deadline extension see I am an author working on my revision in response to the reviewers and I would like an extension for submitting my revised manuscript and responses to reviewers.

Missed Deadline

It is still technically possible to submit your revision after the deadline. If the deadline is missed and we don't hear from you at all, then we will remove the manuscript from the submission queue. In this case the manuscript won't be listed under "Active" anymore, and will have been moved to "Archive". It is still possible to reinstate the manuscript as Active for a nominal Manuscript Reinstatement Fee.

6. Did Not Receive Editorial/Peer Review Email

If you did not receive an email with editorial/peer-review comments, please check your spam filter for the email first. Also, authors can review the editor/author correspondence online on the author homepage.

If there are questions about the status of the manuscript, please see What is the status of my submission? before contacting editorial staff for a status update.

To review the editor/author correspondence:

1. Navigate to your author homepage.
2. Select the Status link for your paper.
3. Select Editor/Author Email Record at the bottom of the review tab, (see also I am an author - where can I find the past reviewer comments?).

See also:

• Did you receive our manuscript or manuscript revision?
• What happens after I submitted a revised version and my responses to reviewer comments?
• What is the status of my submission?
• I can't find my submitted manuscript?
• We have submitted a revised manuscript. However, we have not received a confirmation that the manuscript was received.
• I am an author working on my revision in response to the reviewers and I would like an extension for submitting my revised manuscript and responses to reviewers.
• I am an author - where can I find the past reviewer comments?
• As a reviewer, where do I find other reviewer comments and the authors' responses to the previous reviewer comments?