THREAD: On the full-fledged process of responding to a Revise-And-Resubmit (R&R).

I have written pieces of the process, but I hadn't actually written a thread or a blog post showcasing how all my blog posts fit with one another. I teach this process when I give workshops.

So here's what I do (now), and let me share a lesson from my past lives:

DO NOT SIT ON R&Rs.

I know, they're painful and scary and sometimes we don't know if our paper will get rejected in the end.

But remember, an R&R means an OPPORTUNITY to get your paper published.
Sitting on R&Rs, leaving them for later, and not prioritizing them has gotten me fewer publications. I know this for a fact. I am not ashamed of admitting that I have sometimes felt that I will not be capable of responding to multiple (often conflicting) comments.

HOWEVER...
Sustained, frequent advice from professors who are senior to me (though I am senior myself now too) is always the same and on-point:

The goal is the R&R.

You're not getting a desk rejection.

You are getting your work read, reviewed carefully, thought about, responded to.
What do I do now (and have been doing for the past few years, with success)

When I get the R&R (the "decision letter"), I make sure to calm down, because I am always afraid I'm going to get nasty comments. These have been (luckily) very rarely present in my latest submissions.
Some people ask dear friends or collaborators to read the comments and deliver a kinder, gentler critique. I think this is great to soften the blow, but in the end, we are going to have to read the Letter of Response from Editors, so we might as well soldier on.

(I ask my Mom)
My Mom has a PhD in political science, is a full professor, and has been a Dean of Social Sciences, and she loves me, so it's easier for her to see the good comments in the reviewers' responses and just tell me "the tone on X comment might grate you but it's a good one".
Here is where all my processes articulate with one another:

Once I read the Editor's Decision Letter, which include the comments, I pay a lot of attention to what the editor is telling me in the letter. Which reviewers' comments do they recommend I pay particular attention to?
In my experience (and as an Editor, I do this), editors will chart you a path forward: "we believe this paper holds promise, we suggest you might want to go down this path. Alternatively, there's this other path. Or this other one"

Editors have been incredible generous to me.
Using the editors' and reviewers' comments, I fill my Drafts Review Matrix (DRM) https://t.co/kjfJikTGqR

As you can see in this tweet, I do both digital and paper versions. I need to be able to SEE how the changes fit with one another, holistically. https://t.co/pMvc95K99z
Ok, so now you have mapped out everything reviewers and editors have suggested. You have charted a response route. It's time to use my post on Writing a Response-to-Reviewers-And-Editors. https://t.co/7D4YYpaPid

Some people have sent my DRM directly to editors. I know this.
Most editorial teams will already have a process for how they want the response to look like (redlined version, clean version, point-by-point letter). Some may accept my DRM as is, but I do recommend writing the letter.

You probably are thinking "but how I do I plan the R&R"
I use backcasting to plan how I'm going to spend my days and weeks working on the R&R https://t.co/HrGNtMINhk

(in re-reading my post on the Response to Editors and Reviewers Letter, I realized I did have a thread that links everything together. But now it will work as a post)
Backcasting allows you (me) to think which days you are going to be working on the R&R and in which pieces. I drop those deadlines into my Everything Notebook, as everyone might realize I do.

https://t.co/9O6tG2AHP7

Doing this helps me chart my activities moving forward.
After all is said and done, and you resend the R&R revision, you probably want to take a couple of days off, and reward yourself in some way.

Hope this articulation of my blog posts and my processes are helpful to those of you in the throes of R&R revisions!

NEW BLOG POST: Tackling an R&R (Revise-And-Resubmit) - a full-fledged process https://t.co/FEWdZV9N27

This Twitter thread in handy blog post form so you can reshare with the social buttons, email or copy-and-paste.

More from For later read

The common understanding of propaganda is that it is intended to brainwash the masses. Supposedly, people get exposed to the same message repeatedly and over time come to believe in whatever nonsense authoritarians want them to believe /1

And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.

Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2


When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.

The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3

In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it


Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.

The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.
the whole point of Dunks was you could go cop them at VIM whenever you wanted for $65. this shit is like having to enter a raffle to buy milk.


like seriously why not make a ton more of them if they're gonna be so sought-after? they land at outlets? so? nike still makes money off that.

the only reason to keep making them so limited is that they KNOW all that matters is the profit on the flip and if they were readily available FEWER people would want them, not more

the whole system is super broken, but it's just gonna go the way it goes, because at this point it all caters to the secondary market. the only reason Nike can sell Jordan 1s for $200 is because the people buying them can flip them for $500

adjusted for inflation, a $65 AJ1 in 1985 is like $160—and modern-day AJ1s are made from cheaper materials in factories staffed by cheaper workers. they don't HAVE to be $200 retail. but the secondary market nuked the whole concept of what sneakers are "worth"

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The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?