In many cases, the reviewer may suggest that the author reads this or that article to supplement their literature review.
But it is correct to get suggestions for various quotes?
What would you do? Would you argue against suggestions? Would you inform the editors? Would you give up the publication?
Of course yes. Just yesterday I received one such comment!
Mostly we can make it useful and deal a diplomatic approach to not disappoint the reviewer.
Certainly good advice should always be followed. For the sake of diplocamacia or to improve the quality of work to be published.
Dear Alexandre Beluco: I have not received any suggestions like that so far. Normally reviewers because of their experience in that specific field have better touch with the latest. So I normally abide by their advice to include some specific references in literature review to make it more comprehensive. In fact I do that many a times as a reviewer. It is rare that I will say a specific quote from the paper.
Previously I received such comment and I'm happy to find such a diplomatic and expert reviewer. These days people are offering discounts to publish in their journals, in that case I'm sure there will not be a proper peer-review , only experts can point out our mistakes (overlooks) and then we can learn from them. i took it in a positive way verified whether i have missed it or not and found that the citation is to be added and then continued... Credits to the reviewer, research scholar of the source document and the journal
Reviewers are supposed to help the authors to improve the article, thus, it is fine if they also suggest which additional articles the authors should read. It would be wrong for them to force authors to cite several of their own articles (suggesting them to read 1 or 2 may be still fine, but only if these are extremely relevant).
Tiia, that's the point..... "it would be wrong for them to force authors to cite several of their own articles"!
Tiia: Not only it is wrong, it is also unethical on their part to suggest to quote even one paper of theirs unless it is so important for your subject. Normally if that is the case you would not have missed.
Greetings to all,
It is a desirable suggestion for reviewers to recommend ADDING/DELETING some references which are RELEVANT/IRRELEVANT.
May be due to the following reasons (excuse for overlapping with previous comments):
- Fill a gap in the literature review
- Improvement of Discussion
- Confirmation the results of suggested paper
- Increase the Journal's IF
- A way for the reviewer to get extra citations (trying to improve his/er h-index)
- Close and strong relationship with the reviewed paper
- A Notification to the depositary in writing
- A combination of the above mentioned
The authors are under no obligation to pursue it. Find the suggested articles and cite them (if you believe they deserve to be included), or you can write your disagreement with some reasons in the response letter.
This also helps to find, who the reviewer is. I picked up the reviewer more than a couple of times and confirmed later on. :)
If I have received suggestions for citations from reviewers, I may accept or not! If suggestion is correct, I would accept the suggestion. Up to now, I have not met such experience!
Dear All, Lijo Francis, Patrick Low and others that you know are not able any longer to log in their RG account from yesterday. RG suspended their accounts without any reason. I don't know why, but I find this an outstanding abuse. Please help them and inform all other participants as this is a signal that things are not going in the right way in RG before it happens to you!
Regards
Gianni
In the few occasions this happened to me, I found the reviewers' suggested articles to be useful and helpful in further improving the paper, hence I did follow their suggestion. However, authors are under no obligation to cite the suggested articles though. The final decision depends on the adequacy of the suggested papers as well as their potential to further strengthen your manuscript.
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