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Thanking reviewers at journals that rejected your paper?

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

What’s the etiquette around acknowledging helpful input on a paper from reviewers at a journal where the paper was rejected? E.g. Reviewer 1 at Journal A gives helpful feedback, but Journal A rejects the paper. Paper ends up published in Journal B; how should one acknowledge Reviewer 1’s help, if at all? I have seen acknowledgements that named the other journal explicitly, but this struck me as a bit awkward in terms of revealing prior rejections. (Which we all know happen but might still be a bit awkward to publicize.)

Thoughts from readers?

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10 responses to “Thanking reviewers at journals that rejected your paper?”

  1. Corvus splendens

    I’d be inclined to just thank “n₁ anonymous reviewers”, perhaps “including n₂ at this [the publishing] journal”, at most.

    I don’t have a great sense of settled norms on this but I’d certainly not be put out if a paper I’ve previously reviewed elsewhere comes out and doesn’t have any acknowledgment.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    Maybe an odd strategy, but can you email the editor of Journal A and thank them for their help, note how useful the feedback of reviewer 1 was, and ask them to relay your gratitude in an email to reviewer 1? As a reviewer, I’d be absolutely thrilled about getting such an email, whereas I’m unlikely to stumble across the acknowledgment in the paper, or realize that the shoutout is to me as opposed to other reviewers. And this way, the editor also gets some happy news about their ability to select quality reviewers!

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  3. Anonymous

    I’ve seen a paper give thanks to a reviewer at another journal. In this case, the other journal was noticeably more prestigious than where the paper eventually got published. This felt a little odd to me, as if (perhaps unintentionally) the author wanted to signal that their paper was (apparently favorably) reviewed in a top-5 place. Maybe that response by me was irrational. But either way, it seems that the the logistics of conveying gratitude across journal lines is sufficiently complicated that I’d probably not try it, unless maybe in the general terms that Corvus suggests.

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  4. Anonymous

    I’ve thanked reviewers at specific journals that have rejected my paper. But I’ve only done it when I was really impressed with the feedback I got, and wanted the reviewers to know that, despite the rejection, I thought they were helpful. Otherwise, I just thank the reviewers at the journal where it is accepted.

    Reply
  5. Michel

    Just thank reviewers collectively, or specify the number of them. No need to indicate the journals.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Agreed

      Reply
  6. Charles Pigden

    For the published version, how about ‘My thanks to the anonymous reviewers who have helped me to improve this paper’. Or, if you want to be more specific, a footnote: ‘This point was brought home to me by telling comment from an anonymous referee of an earlier draft’. The alert reader will be able to guess that the paper has been rejected by a previous journal but you won’t be drawing undue attention to the fact. (Also, since it is bit unusual to have your paper accepted by the first journal that you sent it to, the fact that it was rejected at least once is hardly a badge of shame.)

    If you want to thank them privately, write to the editor of the journal that rejected you saying ‘Please convey my heartfelt thanks to Reviewer A . I did not enjoy being rejected but their comments were enormously helpful to me in improving the paper’. That will probably be enough, but if you want to do more, ask the editor to thank them for more specific ideas or comments: ‘He/she raised a telling objection to my Argument G which after much thought and effort I think I have managed to fix. The paper was much improved in consequence.’

    Like one of the Anonymi, I too would be overjoyed get such feedback from an editor.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous

    I’ve sometimes just thanked a reviewer ‘at another journal’ without specifying. This feels particularly useful when it’s a specific point in the paper and in a footnote, rather than a general global acknowledgement.

    Reply
  8. Daniel

    Two discussions on this topic: https://dailynous.com/2020/05/07/citing-referees-journal-rejected/

    https://dailynous.com/2021/03/10/citing-the-referees-at-the-journal-that-rejected-you-part-2/

    I still agree with comment in the first discussion.

    Reply
  9. Anonymous

    I was once (anonymously) thanked by an author in a footnote for a specific comment/objection that I made when I reviewed the paper for another journal (I rejected the article but encouraged the author to further develop their ideas). They did not mention the journal name, but added a discussion of the objection to their paper and then acknowledged that it stems from a previous review. I found this quite kind, but I don’t think that there are any specific norms around this in academia.

    Reply

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