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When reviewer 1 recommends acceptance and reviewer 2 recommends major revisions?

In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks,

Suppose I got two reviewers’ reports: reviewer 1 recommends publication and reviewer 2 recommends major revision; the editor invited me to revise the paper. Should I just consider reviewer 2’s suggestions/comments and revise my paper accordingly, assuming that reviewer 1 gave me the green light? Or should I keep reviewer 1 in mind when I revise it? For example, should I worry that if I do a “major” revision, reviewer 1 might not like it and change their mind? I guess different journals may have different policies but I just want to get a general sense.

This is a tough one. I think there may be a risk that reviewer 1 may not like some of the major revisions one makes. The best thing I think one can probably do here is to make the best revisions you can and then explain in detail in the “response to reviewers” document one submits with the revisions why you made the revisions you did. As a reviewer of R&R’s, I’ve often read these documents carefully to see what other reviewers said and why the author made the choices they did. One other possible thing to do is to pay careful attention to the things that reviewer 1 liked about the paper and try not to change them if at all possible.

What do other readers think?

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6 responses to “When reviewer 1 recommends acceptance and reviewer 2 recommends major revisions?”

  1. William Lee Vanderburgh

    Marcus is right, as usual. I would consider also asking the editor how they want you to balance the competing recommendations. If it were me I would certainly include a thorough letter describing the changes ultimately made. FWIW, in such letters I have on several occasions explained why I didn’t make a recommended change, and even explained why the reviewer was wrong. Reviewers are certainly powerful, but editors make the final decisions, so ultimately you have to convince the editor not the referee.

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  2. sometimes R1 and sometimes R2

    As a reviewer, when asked to review a resubmission, I read the response-to-reviewers document first. If this shows thoughtful engagement with the initial reviews (not just mine! but of course it’s fine to do not much more than say “thanks” to a short, positive review), and indicates that changes have been made as appropriate, then I will be strongly disposed to recommend accept. At this point I will only skim-read the actual paper, just to ensure that the changes claimed in the response document have actually been made. All of this just to emphasize the importance of the response document.

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  3. Tim

    I have had split verdicts like this a lot. And it almost never happens that, if I make revisions to appease one reviewer, that the other reviewer who accepted gets upset and changes their mind. I would not think of it as a major worry.

    I think the guiding idea here is to make revisions that keep the paper at roughly the same quality. If you think making revisions that would radically change the quality, then you should push back on the reviewer. (For instance, if R1 says accept and R2 says to cut the second half of the paper, then maybe if you cut the second half R1 would not longer want to accept the paper. But you probably push back on R2’s recommendation to cut half the paper instead.)

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  4. grad student

    I agree with the above suggestions but thought I’d throw in a couple anecdotes to hopefully make OP a bit less worried about this situation. As an author, each of the three times that I’ve been in this position, the reviewer who was initially positive on the paper recommended acceptance after I made revisions. Two of those papers were accepted; one was rejected because the second reviewer wasn’t satisfied with my revisions. (On one of these occasions, I rewrote the entire paper to appease R2, but R1 still recommended acceptance after that; the paper was published.)

    As a reviewer, I’ve only been in this position once. The author got rid of some small stuff that I liked and added some stuff that I didn’t think was entirely necessary, but it was still clear that the paper made a contribution and I recommended acceptance.

    Satisfying reviewers is hard; good reviewers who recognize that your paper makes a contribution won’t hold the fact that another reviewer wanted you to change the paper against you. Yes, they might ask you to change things in the version that you resubmit, but unless R2 asked you to write an entirely different paper, I don’t think it’s worth worrying about (and even then it might not be!).

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  5. Net

    My experiences are similar to the other commenters, I’ll just add that when the revisions requested were minor, they didn’t even send the revised manuscript to the reviewer who already recommended accept, only to the reviewer who requested revisions

    Reply
  6. Veteran Reviewer

    The two are not of equal weight. A negative reviewer is MUCH more likely than a positive one to mind if her recommendations are ignored. And Reviewer 1 will see Reviewer 2’s feedback, and you will presumably refer to it in your “Response to Referees” document upon resubmission. So Rev. 1 will understand why your revisions were so substantial, if that’s what they prove to be.

    You should be more concerned about alienating Reviewer 2, who is probably already troubled by the MS. Major revisions requests are often gutless “rejects,” or “rejects” where the reviewer wanted to at least be constructive in saying why, or where the editor manufactured an R&R out of a mixed verdict (accept & reject). In which case you’ve got some major worries to overcome.

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