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My goal is to respond to reviewers' comments. While doing that should I put the whole comments or only the parts I am asked to change. Related: Proper way of responding to reviewers' comments

In a case where I do not have any response to some reviewers' paragraphs, should I put them in to my response as well?

For example:

Overall, the article is good quality... Some positive comments... In section 3, equations 2 and 3 are presented without proper explanation.

My response:

Overall, the article is good quality... Some positive comments... In section 3, equations 2 and 3 are presented without proper explanation.

My response

OR (where I did not put any positive comments):

In section 3, equations 2 and 3 are presented without proper explanation.

My response

In my response, should I take the complete piece of paragraph considering positive comments as well or only the part that wanted me to change?

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2 Answers 2

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My coauthors and I have always started from the review in its entirely and interspersed our responses within the review; the combined review response document comprises the entire text of the original review and our responsive comments.

It's not necessary to respond to every specific phrase in the review but I would not delete parts merely because they are not suggesting a change. You can of course thank the reviewer for compliments they provide in the review, if you choose.

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  • Unrelated but can we do something like hobsonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/… page 5, where boxing reviewers' comments piece by piece, while keeping the entire comment?
    – alper
    Sep 28 at 14:20
  • @alper Certainly, I think the overall guiding principle here is to just think like a human and remember the purpose of this is for other humans. Can another human easily follow the review response and see 1) how each response relates to the review, and 2) distinguish between the reviewer comment and the response effortlessly? Then it's fine, unless you've been given explicit instructions to format in any specific way.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Sep 28 at 14:38
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Not a big deal, go with whatever floats your boat

Really, neither editor nor reviewer is likely to care as long as you address their salient points.

That said, you might want to take the third option if the reviewer's report is exceptionally long (since it's the most compact option).

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