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I recently submitted a manuscript to a prestigious journal in my field. The manuscript is now under "minor revision" status and the reviewer only asked me to provide percentages in one of the table. The comments are positive and I think the overall chance of acceptance is quite high.

The thing is, as I go through my manuscript, I found one minor editorial error, that is, the supplemental materials are marked incorrectly (the supplemental material 1 appeared after supplemental material 2, not in the order of appearance. But the supplemental materials are correct, not missing or mismatched). It seems that the editors and reviewers are not aware of tis mistake.

So my question is, what should I do? There seems to be three options:

  1. Correct this editorial error before resubmission and notify the editor in the cover letter. The decision letter has stated

Do not make additional change unless absolutely necessary.

  1. Correct this error anyway without notifying the editorial office since the error is quite trivial.
  2. Don't correct this error now and wait till the copyediting process.

What would you guys suggest me do?

I don't want to leave bad impression on the editors and reviewers and jeopardize the chances of acceptance of my article.

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  • Possible duplicate of Adding a citation after paper is accepted. See also Miswritten reference in (in press) paper.
    – user68958
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 7:34
  • 3
    For a small error that doesn't change anything else, I would suggest amend it, but - essentially - make sure you make the change clear to the editor. Errors in papers are frustrating, so are corrections. - Just don't try to sneak in corrections without declaring them.
    – DetlevCM
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 9:24
  • thank you for the reply! I will mention it in the cover letter.
    – drwhc
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 10:23

2 Answers 2

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Take option #1, correct it now and notify the editor. The decision letter did say "do not make additional changes", but that is almost certainly referring to changes that will need to be peer reviewed. This kind of minor change that no reasonable person will disagree with is not a problem.

If you're still worried, you can also do #3.

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  • Thank you so much for the reply. I guess I'll sleep it over and probably take option #1. Just wondering if making this kind of correction would leave bad impression on the editors and reviewers. But again, I guess honesty is the best policy. I certainly will have someone proofread it before resubmission!!!
    – drwhc
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 5:48
  • @drwhc you might be interested in this other question: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/109460/…
    – Allure
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 6:01
  • The problem with #3 is that during copyediting usually the same rule "Do not make additional change unless absolutely necessary." applies
    – koalo
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 17:40
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Forgive me for being condescending - You seem to be experiencing symptoms of anxiety.

What you need to do is:

  • Take some slow, deep breaths.
  • Go some place with a wide vista, like a hill or something, and soak in the feeling of being on top of things.
  • Relax! Life is good - your paper was accepted.
  • Go with option #1 of course, and don't sweat it.
  • Did I mention taking deep breaths? Do that as much as possible.
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