You submitted your paper...
...and waited.
Then you received an R&R!
Yet, this is where most academics get stuck and abandon papers.
Here's why it's the worst:
Rejection feels personal after months of work, understanding what reviewers actually want is like reading tea leaves, knowing when to push back vs. comply is unclear, and you let the paper sit in limbo for months waiting for motivation to suddenly show up.
And the cycle can repeat 2, 3 or more times! Argh!
Rejection feels personal. It isn't.
You've spent months on this paper. The editor's decision suddenly pops into your inbox and it doesn't read like feedback on a manuscript — it feels like an attack on you. You get angry, defensive, sad, scared. That reaction is normal. But it's also not useful. Nobody tells you it's ok to feel the feels or how to get past them and dig in.
The comments don't say what they mean, or do they really mean that?
Reviewer 2 wants more literature review. Reviewer 3 says the literature review is too long. One comment reads as a suggestion. Another reads as a demand. If English isn't your first language, or reviewer-speak just isn't a language anyone taught you, you're translating tone on top of translating substance — and getting it wrong feels like it could cost you the paper.
You don't know when to push back and when to comply.
Every "revise" isn't the same instruction. Some comments are non-negotiable. Some sound suspiciously like just a reviewer's preference rather than a scholarly requirement. Guessing wrong in giving in on something you shouldn't, or arguing a point you'll lose, has real consequences for your resubmission.
The paper sits. And waits.
Without a co-author or advisor checking in or a writing group asking where you are, an R&R is easy to leave in a folder for "next week." Next week becomes next month. The comments get colder. So does your read on what the reviewers actually wanted.
You start to wonder if you shouldn't have submitted at all.
This one hits hardest for anyone publishing without institutional backing — no department, no co-author down the hall. An R&R can feel like confirmation of the doubt you walked in with, instead of what it actually is: a paper the editor thinks is worth another round.
The research isn't the problem...
(you've already passed the first hurdle of getting reviewed (yay!))
knowing what to do with the decision is.
Most R&Rs trace back to the same root cause: an argument that isn't as clear on the page as it is in your head. Believe me. I've completed more than a hundred peer reviews and I've sent back this comment 90% of the time.
"
You were always grounded in bringing us back to the question of 'what's our core argument?' ... This really stuck with me to make sure my writing is as clear as it can be, and showed me that it's possible to continuously remind readers/reviewers of your main argument without being overly repetitive.
"
Nicole Thio, Phd Student, Cornell University
You come in with a decision letter you've read three times and understood less each time.
You leave with a system for reading it once, correctly.
The eight ways reviewer comments go sideways — vague, contradictory, quietly (or blatantly) rude, phrased as a "suggestion" that isn't one. Stop thinking of comments as a personal attack on your writing and start seeing them as an actionable list of patterns, each with its own response approach.
The comments get out of your inbox and into an organized table: reviewer, section, your read on it, your plan. What felt like forty scattered comments turns out to be fewer than you thought — the table shows you where three reviewers are just saying the same thing three different ways.
When two reviewers contradict each other (and they will!) you're not stuck. You have three moves: go with reviewer A, go with reviewer B, or find the answer neither of them saw. All three are legitimate. None of them require you to just guess.
And when it's time to respond, you're not starting from a blank page and a knot in your stomach. You have a structure for the letter: what to say to each reviewer, how to (politely) refute the ones you're not changing, how to convince an editor to send your paper back out.
"
Before reading these texts, I found it challenging to fully grasp feedback, but afterward, I was able to identify many issues on my own.
"
Li Wenpei, PhD Candidate, National University of Singapore
Revise & Resubmit It!
Workshop
Self-paced * Access anytime
27 USD
You have a decision letter, not a clear next step. This workshop walks you through both: read what reviewers actually meant, organize your response — and get the paper back out the door.
Register
What's inside
Tutorials
Self-paced videos walk through each stage: decode reviewer comments, organize your response, write the resubmission letter.
The Watering Hole
A community discussion board where researchers work through their own R&Rs — and where I show up too.
A Tracking System
A table for organizing every comment by reviewer and section, so forty scattered notes become rows you can work through one at a time.
Each tutorial will guide you through a different stage of the peer review process.
Whether you have 15 minutes or 2 hours, tutorials are designed to be easy to follow and put into action.
Go in order or skip ahead. Do what works for you.
Tutorial One
Introduction
- Welcome and brief introduction
Click here 👉 13 Reasons Papers Get Rejected (or require major revision)
Tutorial Two
Peer Review Process
- Demystifying the peer review process
- Types of peer review
- The role of peer review
Tutorial Three
The Decision
- Types of decisions
- What to do after rejection
Tutorial Four
Receiving an R&R
- The first read through
- Deciphering tone
- Ways to respond
- Getting organized
- Contradictory advice and reviewer misunderstanding
Tutorial Five
Revising
- Step-by-step guidance to revise your manuscript based on reviewer comments
Tutorial Six
Resubmitting
- Revision cover letter
- Responding to reviewer comments
- Cases of disagreement
Tutorial Seven
Acceptance
- Proofs
- Waiting for publication
- Announcing your achievement
"
I believe that academic publication is rarely a smooth journey for anyone, particularly for beginners from non-English-speaking countries... With her support, my work was able to be successfully published, for which I am deeply grateful.
"
Huibo Xu, PhD Candidate, Harbin Institute of Technology
Hello! I'm Jessica...
I'll be your workshop instructor. I'm a teacher, writer, and social scientist who loves walking around the city with my camera. After two decades on the academic track working on post-graduate degrees then slogging along the coveted tenure-track at a highly intense, high-ranking university, I realized I was climbing the wrong mountain. Now I want to help others along their academic path with one of the biggest hurdles: getting published. I truly believe we all have something to contribute to our global knowledge and I am passionate about helping you get your voice published.
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I haven't submitted yet. Is this still useful?
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Don't see your question? Ask me!
Waiting on a decision, or juggling multiple submissions?
This video gives you the full timeline: what happens at every stage after you hit submit, how long each stage typically takes, how to find a journal's published turnaround data before you submit, and how to follow up without damaging the relationship.
And...this free Journal Submission Timeline Tracker covers what a normal review timeline actually looks like, when a delay is a red flag, and how to keep more than one paper moving at once — grab it here.
And then don't forget to register to...
Revise & Resubmit It!