My qualitative research has been accepted for publication on condition that I make certain changes suggested by the reviewer. The first reviewer's requests are very minor, but the second reviewer wants me to find some people to blindly re-code my work. My co-authors obviously cannot do this, and I can't find anyone else willing to do so. Furthermore, I feel that re-coding by others is not necessarily appropriate anyhow, as an external auditor simply cannot know the data as well as I do, and this would compromise the work.
So my questions are: a) how would I find such people and b) Does one absolutely have to do what the reviewers suggest? I think in this case re-coding by an external reviewer is not actually appropriate as it is a very niche subject matter and qualitative work requires that one be well versed in the subject are before coding.
You are absolutely right in thinking that the external (or third-party) coders are not aware of the context, not well versed in the subject and hence their coding may miss important criteria. If you want to publish in the same journal, then the reviewers insistence upon external coding has to be adhered to - there is no other go. In that case, you need to find a willing external coder, apprise him/her of the context, objectives of research, sample, how you collected the data and the instrument used. This entire exercise will take time, effort and acceptance - both by you and the external coder. It is very difficult to find such a person. What is the guarantee, that the reviewer again asks for authenticating this external reviewer coding? I wish the reviewer himself/ herself volunteer to be the external coder or suggest.
Alternatively, retrieve the paper from this journal and submit it to another journal, unless you attach high significance in getting published in that journal.
We researchers do strenuous job of embarking on a study, collecting data, analyzing and give a shape to the paper and submit to journals to share and disseminate our work, but alas, we encounter hiccups.
Please think of finding an external coder or submitting to another journal.
Best wishes
I agree with Sridhar Sambatur, that, unless you felt very strongly about being published by this particular journal, you should submit to another journal. There is no guarantee that your work will be accepted for publication even if you do have your work re-coded.
I may be wrong, but might re-coding change aspects of your writing up that you don't fully feel comfortable with?
Like you, Lynn Mcgovern, I wondered whether you had to follow that wishes of the peer reviewer; could contact the editor of the journal, to appeal about the wishes of the peer reviewer? I looked this dilemma up but found most of the advice seemed to be regarding the rejection of a paper for publication.
I would be very interested to read what other RG members feel.
To me, this sounds as if reviewer two is of the 'quantitative persuasion' and tries to force some 'objectivity' on your investigation. This is of course an elementary mistake. In addition to missing context etc., there may also be privacy issues.
I would try to take this up with the managing editor. Apparently, you submitted the manuscript to a journal that also publishes qualitative research. This means that the editors should know about qualitative research, and should exempt you from this particular demand.
Unfortunately, too many editors don't do their work anymore an instead simply pass on reviews and rely on majority decisions of reviewers. But it is worth a try.
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