Revising your manuscript

If your manuscript is accepted, the editor of the book or journal will return the peer-reviewed manuscript with a cover letter synthesizing the reviewers comments and indicating what changes must be made for the final manuscript to be accepted. You, the author, then revise the manuscript accordingly. When you submit your final manuscript, include a cover letter indicating what changes you made. If you decide not to make some of the requested changes, you should write a rebuttal and send it with your final manuscript. For more information, see Chapter 6. 

Finally, keep a copy of the revised manuscript and all permissions correspondence. You will need the revised manuscript to check against the proofs that your publisher sends. Copies of the permissions correspondence can save you time and effort if the permissions correspondence gets lost or separated from your manuscript. 

At this point, too, you might consider the actual format of your drafts. Because you will be making many changes in your writing, you may find revising less cumbersome and time-consuming if you prepare your manuscripts as described below and in the following section on word processors. 

An extremely important step is to check the specific requirements of the publication you have targeted and follow them. Most publications require revisions of manuscripts that are not in their requested format. Thus, not following a publication s requirements can delay publication and make more work for you. Finally, your paper will be peer-reviewed, so a good idea is to pay attention to the aspects that the reviewers will be considering. Chapter 10 presents the opinions of many reviewers. 

Tou have mentioned that your seminal manuscript on the binding change mechanism had been rejected by the Journal of Biological Chemistry before you published it in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. Would you suggest revision of the peer-review system ... 

When you send your revised manuscript to the editor for reconsideration, send a copy of the old version with the changes indicated so that the editor can quickly and easily see how the review s have been addressed. For the same purpose, also include copies of the reviews with their criticisms numbered, and a separate point-by-point response to each referee suitable for sending to the referee. Often an editor, with such a detailed response in hand, will be able to make an on-the-spot decision about accepting the paper. 

Do not substitute for these measures a cover letter to the editor that says, All the criticisms have been adequately addressed in the revision. Busy editors may not feel they have time to research laboriously w hether this has been done and mav send the paper back to the referees with the cover letter and the question, Have your criticisms been dealt with adequately Busy referees will be irritated that they are faced with a blind search of the manuscript to see what has been done and will hardly approach it in a sympathetic manner. In general, the less completely and forthcomingly the author... 

Whatever your ICP-MS experience, you probably know that there are many textbooks compiled and edited by academics tliat approach ICP-MS from a purely theoretical and fundamental perspective, but there aren t any books that provide a practical perspective of the technique that are written specifically for the novice user. You ll be glad to know that the landscape is changing. With the publication of Practical Guide to ICP-MS A Tutorial for Beginners, Second Edition, the user community has an new reference book that covers everything a beginner needs to know. Aimed specifically at analytical chemists who are not familiar with the technique anci novice users who have just started using it, this updated, revised, and rewritten manuscript includes-... 

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