How to review revised manuscripts

            The majority of papers are revised after reviewers and editors provide feedback. It is rare for papers to be accepted without revision.

            When a paper is submitted after revision:

• The editor will typically review minor adjustments in person.
• In most cases, the editor will send the article back to the original reviewers if substantial adjustments were requested (unless they opted out of this)
• Rarely, the editor might ask for feedback from a brand-new reviewer. In that case, the editor should explain why they need this new perspective. It is crucial that fresh reviewers appreciate prior reviewers’ feedback and the author’s attempts to modify the work.

Any important adjustments should have ideally previously been requested in the initial evaluation; the purpose of the follow-up review should be to confirm that the changes have been made rather than to identify new problems.

            Therefore, reviewing a revised document should just take a few minutes and may simply entail verifying that a few requests have been fulfilled. The review’s objective is still to make sure the paper is of a publishable calibre.

The original decision letter and the author’s rejoinder are often provided by the editor. You may then examine what alterations were demanded, including those made by the other reviewer, and how the author replied to them.

You should concentrate on how the author revised the work in light of their own feedback. This is made easier by the need that authors in some publications note the changes in their revised work.