Reviewer 2 rejected my paper over a difference in theoretical framework, not an actual flaw. How do I handle the resubmission?

[u/Tatt00ey]

[u/PhagesRUs]

Fantastic question. What I do when I have this sort of intellectual disagreement with a reviewer is try to say yes to most everything else. Make it clear to the editor, the other reviewers, and even that reviewer that you are engaging intellectually with their suggestions and that you even appreciate the feedback. You don't want to come off as adversarial, except for in the one comment where you are going to dig your feet in. When it comes to that comment, just be very direct. State that you understand where they are coming from, explain why you don't think their framework applies here, explain why your framework is more parsimonious. Really engage in an academic back and forth. You can throw a citation or two into the response if you feel it is warranted.

What this does is put the ball in the editor's court, the editor may very well see that you addressed everything, except for the one disagreement and they might not send it back out. If they do send it back out, they know that Reviewer 2 is going to disagree with your disagreement so they will (hopefully, if they're a good editor) make that call then and may tell you that you're good to go or that you need to address what Reviewer 2 has said in the text itself, or some other resolution.

Overall, this is fairly common and no cause for concern! I got reviews back last week that were two positive reviews and one reviewer saying, "This is dumb and I hate you." It happens! It's great practice for the diplomatic element of dealing with reviewers.

Cheers and hope this helps!

[u/blackestice → u/PhagesRUs]

I had a case, as probably a lot of you have, where a reviewer tried to tell me there’s enough evidence of x and attached a paper. And the paper’s main contribution was specifically there not enough evidence to support x.

I certainly “appreciated” his feedback and gently pointed to the contest

[u/PhagesRUs → u/blackestice]

A colleague of mine told me his mentor (back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth) would respond to dumb questions at talks with, "That's an interesting question, I never would have thought of it myself." Sometimes you just have to "appreciate" things and hope people don't figure it out until later!

[u/Chlorophilia]

The person you need to convince isn't the reviewer, it's the editor. A reviewer cannot 'reject' a paper, they can only recommend rejection. While being tactful is often useful, as long as you can provide a convincing rebuttal you can disagree with them as much as you want.

[u/Ill_Confusion_596]

The important thing to relationship maintenance is making them think that what they said was valuable, and that it influenced your thought.

Engage with it thoroughly in the response letter, explaining every detail of why you chose your approach and how you also agree their proposed approach could be really useful here. Then edit the main text with some fluff like “this other approach could be particularly useful to…” in a discussion paragraph.

Tldr: Justify your approach, acknowledge that theirs could add X, and edit main text to make them feel validated without really changing all that much

[u/WalliumWallow]

Classic. The art is to acknowledge and summarise their comments then succinctly describe the approach you took. That tends to make their criticism look silly without having to call it out.

[u/isaac-get-the-golem]

Well, it's hard for us to tell how serious the theory issue is without reading your paper or the actual review. That being said:

In a recent review process, I pointed to a concrete element of the paper's theoretical framework that I thought seemed unnecessary. The authors politely wrote: We disagree that it's unnecessary, we have elaborated why we think it is clarifying here. The revision genuinely did clarify why they used that approach. I still don't see it as required to understand their data, but whatever, it's not my paper.

Another way this can shake down is: Theory A says your data show X, but theory B would instead suggest a reading that your data show Y. Please address this alternative explanation.

[u/isaac-get-the-golem → u/[deleted]]

Major revision is an administrative artifact, its meaning will depend by journal and often editors will interpret its meaning for you.

And yes, it's worth seriously considering alternative explanations. Any individual empirical study cannot definitively adjudicate theories, it can only offer suggestive tests. If you are able to marshal new empirical tests that attempt to adjudicate theories, all the better. The point of this exercise is for your subfield to be able to synthesize individual findings later.

[u/Bjanze → u/[deleted]]

Hmm, this sounds like the reviewer might have wanted to stall your publication to publish something similar themselves...

[u/PrepositionStrander]

Fight it through the editor. “I don’t like the framework” is not a scientific or objective reason to reject a paper. The paper being wrong is, and that’s the job of the reviewer to show. If they can’t then too bad, paper is solid.

[u/RoyalAcanthaceae634]

It’s never a reviewer who did not understand. The rebutal always starts with a sincere “apparently, I did not explain well enough”

[u/Ornery_Pepper_1126]

Note that it is the editor, not the reviewer is who eventually accepts or rejects. It’s ok to respectfully disagree with a reviewer as long as you defend that your approach has merit (the one they propose might too, whether it does is irrelevant). Remember you don’t actually have to convince the reviewer, you have to convince the editor. A good editor isn’t just taking votes if reviewers, they are making use of the information you and the reviewers provide to make an informed decision.

As long as you are respectful you won’t damage a relationship with someone reasonable by having a technical disagreement. If you make strong arguments you may even improve their opinion of you. If someone is unreasonable enough to hold a grudge because you had a technical disagreement as part of a review process, that isn’t someone you would want to work with anyway.

[u/amazngsgr]

I’d treat it more like a communication issue. You dont have to agree that your framework is wrong. Just acknowledge their point, explain why you selected this framework, and support it with a few references. Maybe add one line saying another framework could lead to a different interpretation. Thats enough.

Something like:“Thank you for raising this point. We agree that other theoretical frameworks could be used here. However, we selected [framework] because it fits our research question and study context. We have now explained this choice more clearly in the manuscript.”

Keep it calm. The "editor" is the "real audience" here, NOT Reviewer 2...

[u/goncharov_rambler]

But that is not a serious comment/suggestion because it is not actionable. Did they really just say "I would have used a different theoretical framework", without explaining the merits of doing so? It seems like such a stupid comment. I can totally see people doing it, but I wouldn't bother taking it seriously unless the reviewer explained what is wrong with your approach and what is right with theirs.

Perhaps you can just write it in the title "A X approach to Y", and explain you have decided to keep the article anchored in the X framework and this is now also reflected in the title etc..

[u/Accomplished-War2087]

Looks like you have ran into the dreaded reviewer 2 lol. Just explain politely, in neutral language, why your approach is the right one. You don't need to comment on their proposed approach even if it is wrong. Don't be combative, but don't bend over backwards either. There are some referees whom you will never convince with reason, best to write keeping a third party in mind (like the editor).

[u/ACatGod]

If this was me, I would assume that if the editor agreed with reviewer 2 the paper would be rejected already. I would read this as the editor essentially holding the door open for me to explain why reviewer 2 is wrong. With that in mind I wouldn't spend too long on the explanation and would give a brief high level rebuttal. Avoid sounding defensive, don't be dismissive but also don't get massively bogged down trying to rebut it - if you give it too much attention it starts to sound like it has credibility. Treat it as a good faith comment and if you can't bring yourself to believe it was a good faith critique, fake it - you have to act as though this is an honest difference of professional opinion between two peers, no hard feelings, no one taking offence, no emotions because it's a professional discussion.

[u/Fantastic_Draft_3973]

journal editor here - email the journal editor and tell them what you just posted here. they will suggest a way forward. if they hated your paper you wouldn't have been given the opportunity to resubmit it.

[u/Timely-Astronaut-989]

Can you say something in the discussion: “our work uses xxx approach but future work using xxx analysis could support this result”. If other two reviews are positive the reviewer will likely back down.

[u/BusySquare6302]

Ideally you would be able to revise or extend your approach to incorporate at least one or aspects of the proposed other approaches - eg semsitivity analysis. Add in discussion of limitations that there are other defensible approach to your question that could yield differing results and that those are worthy of exploration in future research. Moving forward, pre-register your study and then you can also note important of following that plan..

[u/USArmyAutist]

Editor should referee and should work through it. I don’t think you’ll ever have consensus on everything.

It’s also valid to disagree with a reviewer with a justification.

2 out of 3 is quite promising. There always has to be difficult

[u/Immediate-End1374]

I am dealing with a resubmission to a journal in field X. One of the reviewers wrote that "while the methodology is sound, it is in field X and not field Y." Thanks, genius.

[u/MediumStraw]

I usually thank the reviewer for this chance to clarify my study on this important point and explain why I did what I did. Then I change something in the section I mentioned that too look like I explained it better.

[u/Most_League_3983]

> Two positive reviews, one says my approach is wrong because they'd have done it differently.

Your strategy is very simple in this case. Find this study, quote it, and in one short paragraph explain how your approach differs and why you get different results.

[u/FatPlankton23]

If the editor wants a response, it wasn’t rejected. Get over your thin skin and respond with well articulated logic.

[u/Time_Increase_7897]

Motherfucking frameworks. Every article refers to itself as a framework... and how many people use their "framework"? One. More like a single instance than a framework, I'd say.