I sent my work for a review and got useful and constructive feedback. However, one of the comments were not clear to me! It says:
“Re-think the context of your model”.
Now, my research problem is about an issue that has been discussed in the context of offline. However, my argument is that when we discuss the same problem in the context of online we need to consider the unique aspects of this new context. Therefore, I used an existing model and added five moderators that I thought can cover the aspects of the online context. I added these moderators after conducting some qualitative research. So, it really confuses me to receive this comment!! Can you explain what it might mean, please!
A different approach is that you don't need to respond to every comment from every reviewer. It sounds like the journal editor did not give you guidance with regard to what to emphasize in your revisions, so I recommend that you imagine you are the editor and go over the reviews from that point of view. In particular, rather than organizing your cover letter about revisions so that you go through every remark by every reviewer, determine what were the most important points in the reviews (especially the ones that were made by more than one reviewer) and organize around that.
Also, the key thing to do is to make each reviewer feel that she or he "has been heard." So, explicitly address other key points that this reviewer made, even if you do ignore this particular comment.
Hi, Saleh,
Vague suggestions like this one generally mean that the reviewer wishes you had written a different manuscript than you did. Just respond to this comment in your revisions with a description of the qualitative evidence you used to justify the five moderators. Sometimes you just have to "agree to disagree" with a reviewer's comments. A good editor will listen to both sides and make a final determination.
You might also want to describe the online context in more detail. That way, the reviewer couldn't argue that the description of the context was underdeterminative.
A different approach is that you don't need to respond to every comment from every reviewer. It sounds like the journal editor did not give you guidance with regard to what to emphasize in your revisions, so I recommend that you imagine you are the editor and go over the reviews from that point of view. In particular, rather than organizing your cover letter about revisions so that you go through every remark by every reviewer, determine what were the most important points in the reviews (especially the ones that were made by more than one reviewer) and organize around that.
Also, the key thing to do is to make each reviewer feel that she or he "has been heard." So, explicitly address other key points that this reviewer made, even if you do ignore this particular comment.
The reviewer's comment unfortunately is very vague, and without knowing more I am not even sure that you and the reviewer are using "context" in the same way. Generally, it works best to view such criticisms as failures in communication on your part; as the author, it is your responsibility to communicate. I suggest elaborating on what steps you took to create your model, and what you did to evaluate how well the model was working. Possibly you might discuss alternative models.
One way to look at the comment is that your main context is offline but your model deals with online with new moderators to reach to your possible context. I think this reviewer is asking that you rethink your context as online and still offer your research value adding to it!!
Otherwise my colleagues responses are valid having such a vague comment!!
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