Trigger timing
- Received a Management World R&R notice
- Have 1–3 review comments and editorial board comments
- Preparing to begin revising the main text + response letter
Order principle
Revise the main text first, then write the response letter. The response letter is a "guide map" and must be based on the already revised version of the main text.
Reversing the order leads to:
- The response letter promises revisions that the main text has not actually made
- During main-text revision, it is discovered that the promise cannot be fulfilled
- Multiple drafts are inconsistent back and forth
Response letter structure
Overall structure
尊敬的主编、编委、各位审稿专家：
非常感谢编辑部和各位审稿专家在百忙之中对本文的审阅和宝贵意见。
我们已根据各位意见对论文进行了系统修订。下面我们逐条回复各位的意见。
为便于核对，我们在回复中标注了修订对应的正文位置（如"详见正文 P.X 第 Y 段"）。
致主编 / 编委的回复（如有编委意见）
审稿人 1 的回复
审稿人 2 的回复
审稿人 3 的回复（如有）
再次感谢各位的宝贵意见。
作者
20XX 年 XX 月 XX 日
Single-item response structure
意见 X：[原文照抄审稿意见]
回复：感谢审稿专家的宝贵意见。我们已[做了什么具体修改]，理由如下：
（1）从理论角度，……
（2）从实证角度，……
（3）从写作角度，……
具体修改详见正文第 X 页第 Y 段（修订标记已用[蓝色字体 / 修订模式]标出）。
Three response modes
A. Fully accept
- Directly state acceptance + describe the revision + indicate the location
- Do not make excuses
B. Partially accept
- First affirm the reviewer's reasonableness
- Explain the scope of partial acceptance
- Explain the reasons for the unaccepted part (give evidence, do not quibble）
C. Do not accept (use cautiously)
- First fully affirm the reviewer's consideration
- Provide rigorous counterargument (at least 3 paragraphs)
- If necessary, add robustness / supplementary analysis as supporting evidence
- The proportion of non-acceptance should be at most 1–2 items, otherwise the editorial board will not buy it
Must-check list
- Every review comment has a corresponding response (none may be omitted)
- Every response indicates the location of the main-text revision
- The response letter begins with an acknowledgment paragraph
- Non-accepted comments have sufficient argumentation + supporting evidence
- Main-text revisions are marked (blue font / track changes)
- The revised main text has been read through to ensure there are no contradictions
Anti-patterns
- "Thank you for the reviewer's comments; we have revised accordingly"—a one-line response is tantamount to provocation
- The response letter is longer than the main text—most likely padding the word count
- Three reviewers' comments conflict, yet the response letter accepts them all—the main text will be self-contradictory
- Writing non-acceptance responses very defensively
This journal's R&R review expectation table
Management World is sponsored by the Development Research Center of the State Council, and its review emphasizes standardized causal identification, mechanism testing, and policy implications. At the R&R stage, what the editorial board cares about is not "whether the authors are respectful" but "whether the three lines of identification, mechanism, and policy are truly strengthened, whether the revisions are implemented in the main text, and whether they serve the national strategic orientation." The following table anchors this journal's review expectations and common rejection patterns:
| Comment type | This journal's expected response | Fatal handling |
|---|---|---|
| Identification doubt | Add heterogeneity treatment bias diagnostics/placebo, implemented in the main text | Only verbal defense without adding analysis |
| Mechanism doubt | Add causal mediation or subsample comparison | Rephrase the original result |
| Policy implications are thin | Rewrite the layered recommendations to align with national strategy | Add a sentence: "recommend the government attach importance to it" |
| Imbalance between Chinese and foreign literature | Add top domestic journal literature and engage in dialogue | Only thank them in the response letter without changing the main text |
Common rejection patterns (response stage)
- Revisions promised in the response letter cannot be found in the main text, and the editorial board member points this out on the spot during the second review
- Three reviewers' comments conflict yet all are "accepted," causing the main text to contradict itself
- More than two comments are not accepted and the argumentation is thin, judged as "unwilling to revise"
- A one-line "revised" response is tantamount to provoking the peer reviewers
Mini walkthrough example: second-round response for a digital transformation manuscript
Fabricate an R&R and walk through it according to this skill's rules (page numbers and coefficients are illustrative):
- Comment 1 (identification): The reviewer questions the heterogeneous treatment bias of staggered DID. Response mode A (full acceptance): add Goodman-Bacon decomposition (bad comparison weight 11%, illustrative) + Callaway-Sant'Anna estimate (0.032, illustrative), see main text P.14, paragraph 2.
- Comment 2 (mechanism): The reviewer asks "why can digitalization improve TFP?" Mode A: add a "policy → degree of digitalization → TFP" causal mediation, see main text P.18, paragraph 3.
- Comment 3 (policy): The editorial board member points out that the policy implications are weak. Mode B (partial acceptance): rewrite the three layered recommendations and align them with the "Digital China" strategy, but retain the original conclusion framework, explain the reasons in three paragraphs, see main text P.22.
- Comment 4 (heterogeneity cut): The reviewer suggests adding a split by factor endowment. Mode C (not accepted, cautious): first affirm its reasonableness, then politely decline on the grounds of insufficient sample size (one subsample N=42, illustrative) + the existing three dimensions already being sufficient to support the conclusion, and add a robustness check as corroborating evidence.
- Judgment: Only 1 item is not accepted and it has corroborating evidence, and the main text revisions correspond one-to-one with the response letter → can be uploaded for second review.
Reviewer follow-up question patterns + revision methods in this journal's context
- Follow-up question: "Did the revisions really go into the main text?" → Revision method: mark each response with "see main text P.X, paragraph Y," and mark it with track changes/blue font so the editorial office can verify.
- Follow-up question: "How do you reconcile the conflict among the three reviewers' comments?" → In this journal's context, the editorial board accepts "explicitly explain the conflict + give a compromise solution + explain the basis for the trade-off," which is far better than full acceptance leading to contradictions in the main text.
- Follow-up question: "Why are the policy implications still weak?" → Revision method: coordinate with mw-policy-implication to rewrite the layered recommendations and align them with national strategy, rather than adding an empty phrase in the response letter.
Calibration anchors
Successful R&R responses in this journal generally follow "revise the main text first, then write a guide-style response letter," mark the location in the main text item by item, have substantive reinforcement across all three lines of identification/mechanism/policy, and keep unaccepted comments to 1–2 with corroborating evidence. The response letter is usually much shorter than the amount of main text revision. The second-review round and upload format are subject to the editorial office's latest manuscript guidelines.
Output format
【审稿人数】X 人
【意见总数】X 条
【完全接受】X 条
【部分接受】X 条
【不接受】X 条
【回复信字数】X
【正文修订段落数】X
【下一步】上传至投稿系统 → 等待二轮审稿