一个普通医生分享评审SCI稿件的经验

前不久拜读一篇文章，该作者称在1年半时间内评审了50篇SCI论文，并与大家分享经验。首先我对作者的大公无私精神表示敬佩，因为这有助于帮助大家一起提高论文写作水平和增加SCI投稿技巧。凡是助人为乐的事情都应该提出表扬！！！

本人也有一些评审SCI稿件的经验，虽然那些杂志的档次不算高，不过可能会有国内的作者向这类水平的杂志投稿，所以也愿意拿出来分享。但是稿件层次较低，本人水平有限，中文表达能力也较欠缺，所以先说声献丑了。

对了，还应先交代一下本人的简单背景：我在国内一所大学附属医院当普通医生，现在是副高，曾在美国2所大学做过几年博士后（出国前就评了副教授，留学期间一直不敢告诉别人，怕丢脸），主要从事自身免疫和光医学领域的研究。曾发过论文的最好杂志是Arthritis Rheum （IF 8.435），2-4分的杂志倒是发了一批。

可能是本人涉猎的领域比较偏门，又发了一些文章，所以近年陆续有相关领域的杂志向我邀请审稿。昨天我把邮箱整理了一下，它们是：J Immunol (5.745)，Arthritis Res Ther (4.357)，Rheumatology (4.171)，Clin Immunol （3.932），Photochem Photobiol（2.679），Laser Med Sci （2.311），Autoimmunity (2.352)，Photomed Laser Surg (2.474)，Exp Biol Med (2.954)，Exp Dermatol (4.159)，Int J Dermatol （1.265）。结合这些稿件，下面谈一下自己的感想。

1. 如何推荐审稿人：目前绝大部分杂志都有向投稿人提供选择推荐审稿人的选项，通常为3-5人。基本要求是与投稿人不属于同一学术机构，没有密切合作关系，近5年没有在同一篇文章中共同署名。这是一个非常好的机会！如果你推荐的审稿专家理由合理（有些杂志要求提出邀请理由），许多编辑会考虑把稿件让这些人审阅的。最简单的做法就是，在你稿件的引文文献中找审稿专家。因为一是他们肯定是本领域的人，二是他们因你引用了他们的文章而非常有好感，不会对你产生排斥心理。你想想看，谁不希望自己的文章被更多人引用啊?当然，你一定要查阅该专家先前发表过的全部文献，能引用的尽量都放进去，以显示你对他的尊重。

我曾审阅来自Clin Immunol的一份稿件，是关于自身抗体亚类与器官特异性损害之间关系的论文，作者是美国某实验室的，从名字看老板应该是美国人。他引用了我的一篇文章，但是观点有点曲解。我善意的给他指出来，还告诉我的老板的另一篇文章也应该引进去。稿件修会后，发现他照做了！我则表示同意发表。当然，最初因为他引用了我的文章，我肯定是不会随意枪毙他的稿件的，哈哈！我当时在初审意见中写道：In this manuscript, Jardan et al demonstrated that … antibodies contribute to inducing …(略) phenotypic changes in … cells both in vivo and in vitro. This result provides us an important insight in the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis induced by …. I think authors well prepared this paper and did steady work. Interpretation for their results seems appropriate. (多多美言) I have the following minor comments…(暗示文章应被接受)

2. 如何给自己的稿件定位于何种杂志：每个作者都期望自己的文章能发到IF尽可能高的杂志。国外的老板通常对自己的领域非常清楚，往往在实验设计阶段就知道了投稿方向，结果出来后就可确定发表于何种杂志。国内实验室常常没有这种水平，那怎么办？我的经验是：把文章大致写完后，看看你主要引用了哪些杂志的文献，这些作者主要在哪些杂志上发表论文？然后就可确定拟投稿的杂志，大致**不离十。

2009年我收到来自Exp Dermatol的审稿信，是关于moesin family蛋白的一篇论文。作者则是University of Cincinnati Medical Center实验室的。美国人写的论文语言肯定没问题，图片也很漂亮。但我阅读后，感觉没什么新意，实验设计过于简单，仅仅用免疫组化和western blot证明观点，讨论部分不深入，引用的文献集中于一些不甚知名的杂志。我于是给的评语不是很好，如下：

1. The scoring criteria is extremely important for the histological evaluation of BCC and trichoblastoma. But it was not mentioned in this manuscript if such a criteria had been used before. An authoritative reference may be convincing.

2. Results’ comments and figure legends are not clear enough to be able to follow the figures without referring constantly to the sections. Authors should explain if any significant difference between BCC and trichoblastoma in Fig.1.

3. On page 4 line 48-50, authors wrote " The difference between the staining patterns was statistically significant with a p-value <0.05." It's confusing and misleading. How can they compare the staining patterns statistically? Fig.3 doesn't reflect this conclusion. Please clarify.

4. On page 4 line 25-27, the "normal skin" means what? It's not rigorous to consider surrounding tissue as normal skin when evaluating BCC or trichoblastoma. It's better to stain normal skin from other site and then do this comparison.

5. Some very important opinions appeared in the discussion section without related citation. For example, "…(略) normally exists in an activated state at the cell membrane and an inactive state in the cytoplasm. It appears that in certain neoplasms this relationship may be reversed with increased cytoplasmic activation and decreased membrane activation."

6. Some abbreviations (e.g. BCC, SCC) need to be explained at first appearance in the text. Some references could be updated, and all references should be given in a consistent style.

后来得知该论文未被接受。

3.英语写作水平真的极其重要吗？有何途径改善稿件水平？我的回答是，非常重要！我的英语也不够好，但对于论文稿件的写作水平，还是有感觉的。即所谓不会做饭，但知道饭菜是否可口。但是这是中国作者普遍的短板。许多杂志有推荐的英文编辑公司，帮助非英语国家的作者修改语言问题。但是，这需要你在投稿前就修改语言水平，而问题是稿件常常被拒或大修，你需要针对审阅者提出的问题作大幅修改，结果语言表达又会重新整理，形成新的缺陷。

我的一个建议是：先不必找语言编辑公司，直接向水平相仿的杂志投稿（太高的杂志，会在送审前被编辑直接拒掉的），等待拿到修回意见后再找公司帮忙。尽管这样被拒掉，但你拿到了comments，有针对性的重新组织稿件后，再找公司进行语言润色，向其它杂志投稿。这样可以节约费用。

4.怎样回答审稿人的提问？正如其他作者所说，几乎没有文章会被直接接受，大都是经过小修或大修才能被接受发表。就个人经验，就算是再好的稿件，我作为审稿人也会提出一大堆问题。要不然如何向杂志编辑证实我的水平呢？审稿不认真，人家下次不会找你的。在这里，我以自己曾经的老板为榜样。我在他的实验室参与发了6篇文章（多数不是第一作者）。尽管他很有名气，但他对别人审稿的意见非常看重，回答非常认真，语气非常讲究，以下是例子（回复信）：

…(略), MD

Columbia University Medical Center

Editor-in-Chief, …(略)

Phone: …(略) Email: …(略)@gmail.com

Re: Manuscript …(略)-revised

Dear Dr. …(略),

Thank you for the review of our manuscript titled: “…(略)” and for the helpful comments by the reviewers. We are pleased with the Editors’ decision in the letter dated 4/18/10 to consider a revised version of our manuscript, addressing all the issues brought up by the reviewers.

Below, I will detail how we extensively revised the paper to address each of the comments by the reviewers (in italic), following the numbering of the comments in the original decision letter. Changes in the revised manuscript are marked in highlighted font. （把审稿意见和自己的回复，用不同字体分别表示）

Reviewer #1:

1. This paper examines the role of …(略) in immune complex mediated renal disease. It has previously been shown that …(略) are resistant to renal impairment that results from nephron depletion and this paper shows similarly that …(略)

We completely agree with the reviewer that it is necessary to exclude any contribution of LPS to the effects observed with purified …(略).（先表示充分赞同审稿者的意见） In conclusively addressing this point, we found that: 1) …(略) （然后再解释自己的结果）

2. The siRNA experiment needs to be better described. Why were …(略)

For the revised paper, we improved our description of the siRNA experiment.（表明自己做了认真修改）Since there was no significant difference between …(略) （然后再阐明自己的不同观点）

3. The data in Figure 6A and 6C are confusing as the method is not described. …(略).（实际上审稿者的这条意见是无理取闹）

In response to this comment, the data in Figures 6A and 6C are now provided as fold change in …(略) （依然耐心复述一遍，稍作修改后仍表示认同修稿意见）

Reviewer #2:

1. Major concern: The authors conclude that …(略) is an effector that mediates local tissue damage (via apoptosis) that is itself induced by the renal deposition of immune complexes. However, …(略)（这段意见有一页纸，约1000字。我认为是不同角度看问题，并非我们的文章结论有错误）

As indicated by the reviewer, our studies demonstrating nephritis exacerbation with extraneous …(略) strongly indicate that the attenuated disease observed in …(略) KO mice is not a result of a mild immune response in the latter mice (page x, paragraph y). …(略) （先把审稿者的意见归纳一下，虽未表示认同，但也不予以否定）

The reversal of the effects of …(略) on cell survival and cytokine secretion by an …(略) （然后从各个角度论证自己结论的科学性，也回复了约1000字）

2. Overall: Suggest re-framing the description and utility of the …(略) model throughout the manuscript to better represent …(略)

Throughout the revised paper, we followed the suggestion of the reviewer to shift the emphasis to the strength of the …(略) （始终表示对审稿意见的尊重，哪怕过于挑剔）

Editor Comments to the Author:

The concern is a lack of mechanism. If the authors cannot provide mechanistic data, the manuscript is unlikely to be acceptable for publication even if the other concerns are addressed!

We appreciate the opportunity to enhance the paper with mechanistic studies. As is evident from our responses to Reviewer #1, a significant portion of our current paper is dedicated to exploring the mechanisms of action of …(略) in immune complex mediated renal disease, including performing several additional significant experiments not included in the original version. These studies, in which a significant amount of time and effort were invested over the last several months, are carefully detailed above in our responses to both reviewers. （比中国人还谦虚！）

I believe that we comprehensively dealt with all the reviewer and Editor comments in the revised manuscript. We sincerely thank the reviewers for their constructive comments, and their time and efforts in improving our manuscript. We hope you agree that our revised manuscript is now acceptable for publication in …(略).

Sincerely,

签字

另外说明：

1.与曾在丁香园登文谈经验的其它作者不同，我没有加入国外任何协会，不是会员。所以个人认为，并非要成为这些杂志所隶属的协会会员才有资格审稿的。这些年中国人在国内做研究而发表的SCI论文节节攀升，被他引率也正快速提高，这是吸引这些杂志邀请中国人审稿的主要原因。其实，许多杂志邀请你审稿，重要原因是稿件作者曾拜读或引用了你先前的论文，他们向杂志编辑推荐将你作为候选审稿者。这样我们才有机会的。

2.在丁香园谈个人经验，个人认为应诚实可靠，切不可浮夸。对于有人在1年半的时间评审近50篇论文，感觉是不是太多了…深感敬佩…因为18个月，几乎3篇/月。我曾经的老板是美国该研究领域的牛人之一，所在学校的系主任，也不是经常收到审稿邀请的。

3.个人拙陋观点，无心引起争议。