Revise and resubmit

There is response at Progressive Geographies to an earlier post at the APPS site about the ‘revise & resubmit’ category used in making decisions about whether to publish articles. It’s interesting to see the different perspectives on what this decision actually means. My experience has been that revising and resubmitting a paper, when offered the chance to do so, is productive. I’ve found that it improves the chance of success. But, as Stuart Elden points out in the Progressive Geographies piece, a revise and resubmit is far from a guarantee of publication. There have been at least a couple of occasions where I’ve tried to make the changes asked of me but I’ve not quite managed it and the paper has ultimately been rejected. This is a bit frustrating because of the timescales as much as anything. But on both occasions where i’ve had a piece rejected at the second round of reviews I’ve ended up with a better article to take elsewhere. I’ve just realised that on both occasions I was also doing something quite explorative and risky, and that the changes asked for were extensive, so maybe that is relevant. On both occasions the editors were also very helpful and encouraging. That also helped soften the blow. So, my experience is that a revise and resubmit is a positive thing but it doesn’t always pay off in the end. This all relates a bit to my post about how tricky it can be to revise articles. Sometimes these revisions are trickier than others.