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We all know that the peer review process of a manuscript can take months, and months, and more months. In this period, one continues to research, and sometimes your manuscript keeps experiencing small changes as your investigation proceeds further. What do you do? Wait until the first revision to introduce these changes and let the editor know that you also made modifications that were not based on the reviewers comments?

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  • related : academia.stackexchange.com/q/131332/1015
    – Rajesh D
    Sep 19, 2019 at 4:19
  • The phrase "exclusively modify" puzzles me. Are you trying to warn the editor that you did not modify the paper behind your co-authors' backs?
    – RonJohn
    Sep 19, 2019 at 23:59
  • 1
    Hi. "you did not exclusively modify your original manuscript based on the reviewers comments" = you modified your manuscript, but those modifications were not exclusively based on the reviewers comments, i.e., you made other modifications on your own. I don't have a co-author.
    – Philosopher of science
    Sep 20, 2019 at 0:08
  • Thanks for pointing this out. Are you a native speaker? I modified and simplified the text of my original question.
    – Philosopher of science
    Sep 20, 2019 at 0:14

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Wait until the first revision to introduce this changes and let the editor know that you did not exclusively modify your original manuscript based on the reviewers comments?

Yes, that's the most common thing to do.

Of course, if the paper is rejected, then you can incorporate the changes before submitting somewhere else.

If the new developments are dramatic, then you may instead decide to leave the original paper alone, and write a separate paper with the new work.

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    I had dramatic developments which were very well received by the reviewers, apparently. The article was accepted.
    – Philosopher of science
    Apr 9, 2020 at 11:32
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This depends a lot on the scale of your proposed changes. If they are huge, you might have a new paper to follow on the first. If they are really small, as you suggest, you could just save them for a revision, supposing that the paper will be "accepted with revisions".

The intermediate case is a bit harder. If the changes alter the thrust of the paper or a major conclusion, you need to inform the editor. In the long run that will save time, in most cases.

But yes, you can and should point out things in the revision that weren't in the original to make the second round of review either go faster or be avoided.

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