A Checklist: Revising and Resubmitting a Paper for Publication

Before submitting a revised paper to a publisher, it is important to address the feedback made by all of the reviewers and the journal editor.

Often, when revising a paper, it is easy to introduce inconsistencies and other problems that did not exist in the original document. This brief checklist is intended to help anybody who is resubmitting a paper for publication.

The following issues may not occur in your revision, but it is a good idea to check all of the following, especially if multiple authors have revised the manuscript.

Checklist for Revising and Resubmitting Your Manuscript for Publication:

1. Have you addressed all of the editorial feedback?

It is important to make sure that every issue they have addressed has been answered in a response letter to the reviewers and in the document itself, where applicable.

2. Have you checked for consistency throughout the document?

The following issues are easy to miss:

• Active/passive voice - Learn when to use active or passive voice.
• Person - Learn more about the first and third person in academic writing.
• Verb tense - Get our free guide on how to choose the right verb tense.
• Parallelism: Orders of items (a, b, and c vs. a, c, and b) - Learn how to maintain parallel structure in your writing.

Microsoft Word can help you address some of the most common inconsistencies, such as abbreviation use, hyphenation, spacing, and more. Other common inconsistencies that must be addressed in manuscripts include structure (section headings, font style and size), vague language, and citations.

3. Ensure that the paper is formatted according to the preferences of the journal you are submitting it to.

Get insights on formatting issues and learn about some of the greatest difficulties formatters face. You can also learn about style guides and find out some of the most popular formats used by publishers in academia.

4. Run a spell check.

It is easy to introduce typographical errors while revising a document.

5. Have all of the authors read and approve the new version of the manuscript before resubmission.

Journals often require that all authors approve of the final version of the manuscript for publication. Learn more about authorship regarding this issue and other ethical implications regarding authorship.

6. Consider how to best respond to reviewers.

After you have ensured that the revisions meet your reviewers' expectations and that your revisions are consistent throughout the document, consider your responses to peer reviewers and how you can write persuasively.

If you'd like to know more about how AJE can help you with language editing of your revised paper, please click here.

Thanks to Ben Mudrak and Michaela Panter for contributing to this article.