letter to editor 回復編輯的信(SCI)

1、Dear Dr. XXX, Thank you for arranging a timely review for our manuscript. We are pleased to know that our study is of general interest for the readers of NUTRITION. We have carefully evaluated the reviewers critical comments and thoughtful suggestions, responded to these suggestions point-by-point,

2、and revised the manuscript accordingly. All changes made to the text are in red so that they may be easily identified. With regard to the reviewers comments and suggestions, we wish to reply as follows:Enclosures:(1) Correspondences to your reviewers;(2) One copy of the revised manuscript;(3) A flop

3、py disk containing the revised manuscript.(4) Copyright assignmentTo reviewer#11. The author should add a few review articles on ghrelin for readers in the Introduction.We added two reviews in our revised manuscript.2. The increase in ghrelin levels do not necessary indicate that weight loss in dise

4、ase is well compensated (Introduction and Discussion). This may be interpreted to be insufficient to recover to the previous body weight.There is possibility that the increase in ghrelin levels may result from the insufficient to recover to the previous body weight, but it is more likely that the in

5、crease in ghrelin level indicate that weight loss in disease is well compensated. Shimizu et al1 reported that baseline plasma ghrelin level was significantly higher in cachectic patients with lung cancer than in noncachectic patients and control subjects. As weight loss is a chronic process and ghr

6、elin levels may change more rapid than weight loss, the increase in ghrelin in those chronic diseases is unlikely result from the insufficient to recover to the previous body weight. Moreover, this author also reported that follow-up plasma ghrelin level increased in the presence of anorexia after c

7、hemotherapy, which further suggests that the increase ghrelin level may represent a compensatory mechanism under catabolicanabolic imbalance in cachectic patients with lung cancer1.3. The authors should refer to the original report that IL-1b decrease plasma ghrelin levels(Gastroentelorogy 120:337-3

8、45,2001) We referred this article as the reviewer suggested. In fact, this is a mistake of us. Many thanks for the reviewers suggestion.4. Ref. 13 dose not include data on ghrelin.We are so sorry to make this mistake for citing the Ref.13. We replaced the reference in the paper.5. There is no report

9、 that desacyl ghrelin stimulates food intake. It is the consensus at present acyl ghrelin is involved in feeding response to starvation. Therefore, the authors should be careful about their interpretation described in the last paragraph in page 10. We made it clear in the paper that ghrelin has two

10、isoforms (“active” and “inactive”). Only the “active” isoform is involved in feeding response to starvation. But the “inactive” isoform has other activities like anti-proliferative activity on tumor cell lines as described in the manuscript.To reviewer#2Major comments1. Earlier studies have shown th

11、at circulating ghrelin level is increased in underweight patients with CHF, lung cancer, and liver cirrhosis. In the present study, however, plasma ghrelin level was decreased despite a significant weight loss in COPD. In addition, earlier studies have reported that circulating ghrelin correlated po

12、sitively with BMI in patients with CHF and lung cancer. However, the present study demonstrated that plasma ghrelin level correlated positively with BMI in COPD patients. Thus, there are considerable discrepancies between the present study and earlier studies. These discrepancies should be discussed

13、 in detail. The author also stated the regulation of ghrelin secretion was disturbed in COPD patients. However, they did not clarify this mechanism.We stated that the role of ghrelin in patients with COPD may be different from its role in CHF, cancer and liver cirrhosis and discussed this difference

14、 in the last paragraph of page 9. Following the reviewers suggestion, we added that “plasma ghrelin correlated positively with percent predicted residual volume and residual volume/total lung capacity ratio” as the evidence for further supporting that respiratory abnormalities may take part in the r

15、egulation of plasma ghrelin levels.2. The authors demonstrated that plasma ghrelin level correlated negatively with plasma TND-a and CRP in COPD patients. However, Nagaya et al. have shown that plasma ghrelin level correlates positively with plasma TNF-a level in patients with CHF. This discrepancy

16、should be discussed. According to the reviewer indicated, we discussed this discrepancy in the second paragraph of page 9.3. The author stated that respiratory abnormalities may take part in the regulation of plasma ghrelin level in COPD. The authors should describle the relationship between plasma

17、ghrelin level and pulmonary function in COPD. There are evidences that respiratory abnormalities may take part in the regulation of plasma ghrelin level in lung diseases with respiratory abnormalities2,3. As our study was designed to investigate whether the plasma ghrelin levels are increased or dec

18、reased in COPD and whether the plasma ghrelin levels relates to the increased systemic inflammation in those patients, so we didnt analysis the relationship between plasma ghrelin level and pulmonary function. Minor comments1. Circulating ghrelin level exhibits a circadian rhythm. Therefore, the aut

19、hors should describle the limitation of their measurement of ghrelin in single samples. Its true that circulating ghrelin level exhibits a circadian rhythm and to monitor the ghrelin levels in different time points is better than just measured a single sample. However, we collected the samples at th

20、e fasting state (from 9:00 p.m. on the previous night.) by venipuncture at 7:00 a.m. as most studies did2,4. So our results can exclude the possibility that the difference between groups was result from the circadian rhythm of ghrelin and are well compared with other studies. 2. In the Results secti

21、on, plasma ghrelin level in healthy controls was different with that in 0.25+0.22ng/ml, whereas, in Figure 1A, it was approximately 1.8ng/ml. We fixed this in our revised manuscript. We are so sorry to make this mistake.To reviewer#31. About the paper of Itoh et al in AJRCC. As the reviewer said, th

22、e study by Itoh et al was not published when the current manuscript were submitted. We discussed the difference between the findings of their study and our study in revised manuscript.2. Abstract Conclusion: “plasma ghrelin decreased in COPD”. This sounds like the authors have followed subjects for

23、a long time and that the diagnosis COPD was conformed, the plasma ghrelin decreased. This was however not the aim nor the case-a reformulation is necessary.We fixed this as the reviewer suggested in our revised manuscript.3. Introduction(1) Page 2. Ref.1. is a letter to the editor in Br J Nutr and i

24、s a comment concering an earlier published paper. It is not a reference that support the statement. Several other references exist in the literature to be used instead.Thanks for the reviewers suggestion. We replaced this reference by other one.(2) Page 2, line 5. “To understand weight loss mechanis

25、ms in this disease may be helpful to improve quality of life in these patients”. Do you really think that if we researchers understand the mechanisms that automatically would make the patients happier? We replaced this sentence with “To understand weight loss mechanisms in this disease may be helpfu

26、l to combat weight loss in these patients”4. Methods(1) Patients: How were the patient and control subjects selected?The authors state that none of the control subjects was taking and medications-was that also the case for the patients?That was also the case for the patients. In fact, most of the CO

27、PD patients in China do not take any medications when the disease is clinically stable because of economic reason.Page 4, line 2. A short description of ATS criteria would be helpful for readers who are not familiar with those criteria.As those criteria are widely used by researcher and physicians,

28、we did not describe them in our paper as some paper did. If you think it is necessary to do so, we may add a short description.Page4, line3, what do you mean by “other diseases”? COPD patients most often have a lot of other diseases.We are so sorry to mis-express this - we just means that those pati

29、ents did not have the disease that known to affect the plasma ghrelin level. We fixed it in our revised manuscript. Page 4, line 5. If I understand it correctly, none of the COPD patients were smokers or ex-smokers, i.e. another reason exists for their COPD. Cigarette smoking is the main cause of CO

30、PD, but here you have studied patients having other reasons for the disease. What dose this mean regarding the representativity of the study group?Could it affect the results in some way? Smoking increases the plasma ghrelin level5. It is difficult for us to define “ex-smokers” because there is no s

31、tudy about that whether the ex-smoking will affect the plasma ghrelin level or not. This may lead to the representativity problem. However, those patients in our study still lost the weight and had system inflammation as most COPD patients did. Further study should be designed to investigate the eff

32、ect of ex-smoking on plasma ghrelin level.Page 4, line 6.Why do the authors refer to Whatmore et al? That study investigated ghrelin in healthy adolescents and has nothing to do with factor known to affect serum ghrelin level.We are sorry to make this mistake. We replaced this reference. (2) Body co

33、mpositionPage 4, last line page 5, line1. The deuterium dilution study performed by Baarends et al was using arm to foot bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy. In the current manuscript the foot to foot bioelectrical impedance assessment is used. The readers are lead to believe that the foot to foot

34、BIA is also validated with deuterium dilution in COPD patients, which I think is not the case.Thanks for the carefulness of the reviewer. However, there are still evidences that our method is well correlated with DEXA6 and arm to foot bioelectrical impedance7, so it is appropriate to use this method

35、 in our study. However, because those sentences will lead to the confusion, we deleted them in revised manuscript according to suggestion of the reviewer. Page 5, line 4. The %fat was calculated by the machine. It should be stated on which material these calculations are based on healthy subject? yo

36、ung or old? How many.According to the instruction of the manufactory, we selected the standard model for this calculation (the other model was athletic). We stated this in the revised manuscript.(3) StatisticalA reference by Scols et al is used to strengthen the use of values below the detection lim

37、it and the use of log. Other reasons need to be provided. What if Schols et al did a statistical error using values that were below the detection limit? There do exist statistical reasonsfor log the values do they exist in this manuscript?Its very important to select a suitable statistical method fo

38、r process the data. There are 6 data below the detection limit in ghrelin and 1 data in leptin. If these data were discarded, it may increase the possibility of type two error as lower ghrelin levels were exclude. However, if the data were analyzed originally, it may increase the possibility of type

39、 one error as they below the detection limit. So it is reasonable to adopt the method used by Schols et al. As to log transformation, we added the necessary information in the text according to the opinion of the reviewer. 5. DiscussionPage 8. line 2-3. COPD patients had lower ghrelin levels compare

40、d to the control subjects. Did the control subjects have “normal” ghrelin values?We selected seventeen age-matched healthy males as control subjects. Those subjects were healthy. So we can take their ghrelin levels as “normal” ghrelin values. However, we think true “normal ghrelin values” should be

41、based on large population study. Page9. line 18. Following “CHF, cancer and liver cirrhosis” a reference is needed here.We added references as the reviewer suggested.Page9. last line.ghrelin instead of gherlin.We fixed it.Page 11. Delete the summary, it is the same as the conclusion in the abstract.

42、We wrote the summary according to the guideline for author of the journal. If you think the summary should be cut, we may delete it.6. Reference As mentioned above, some of the references are not appropriate. They should be replaced by more appropriate and explanatory references.Many thanks for the

43、reviewers suggestion. We replaced those references in the revised manuscript.References:1.Shimizu, Y., Nagaya, N., Isobe, T., et al. Increased plasma ghrelin level in lung cancer cachexia. Clin Cancer Res 2003; 9: 7742.Itoh, T., Nagaya, N., Yoshikawa, M., et al. Elevated Plasma Ghrelin Level in Unde

44、rweight Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2004; 3.Haqq, A. M., Stadler, D. D., Jackson, R. H., et al. Effects of growth hormone on pulmonary function, sleep quality, behavior, cognition, growth velocity, body composition, and resting energy expenditure in

45、 Prader-Willi syndrome. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2003; 88: 22064.Nagaya, N., Uematsu, M., Kojima, M., et al. Elevated circulating level of ghrelin in cachexia associated with chronic heart failure: relationships between ghrelin and anabolic/catabolic factors. Circulation 2001; 104: 20345.Fagerberg, B

46、., Hulten, L. M.,Hulthe, J. Plasma ghrelin, body fat, insulin resistance, and smoking in clinically healthy men: the atherosclerosis and insulin resistance study. Metabolism 2003; 52: 14606.Tyrrell, V. J., Richards, G., Hofman, P., et al. Foot-to-foot bioelectrical impedance analysis: a valuable too

47、l for the measurement of body composition in children. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2001; 25: 2737.Nunez, C., Gallagher, D., Visser, M., et al. Bioimpedance analysis: evaluation of leg-to-leg system based on pressure contact footpad electrodes. Med Sci Sports Exerc 1997; 29: 524一篇稿子從醞釀到成型歷經艱辛，投出去之后

48、又是漫長的等待，好容易收到編輯的回信，得到的往往又是審稿人不留情面的一頓狂批。這時候，如何有策略有技巧的回復審稿人就顯得尤為重要。好的回復是文章被接收的重要砝碼，而不恰當的回復輕則導致再次修改從而拖延發(fā)稿時間，重則導致文章被拒，前功盡棄。下面把我平時總結的一些答復審稿人的策略和寫回復信的格式和技巧跟大家交流一下。首先，絕對服從編輯的意見。在審稿人給出各自的意見之后，編輯一般不會再提出自己的意見。但是，編輯一旦提出某些意見，就意味著他認為這是文章里的重大缺陷，至少是不合他的口味。這時，我們唯一能夠做的只能是服從。因為畢竟是人家掌握著生殺予奪的大權。第二，永遠不要跟審稿人爭執(zhí)。跟審稿人起爭執(zhí)是非常

49、不明智的一件事情。審稿人意見如果正確那就不用說了，直接照辦就是。如果不正確的話，也大可不必在回復中冷嘲熱諷，心平氣和的說明白就是了。大家都是青年人，血氣方剛，被人拍了當然不爽，被人錯拍了就更不爽了。尤其是一些名門正派里的弟子，看到一審結果是major而不是minor本來就已經很不爽了，難得抓住審稿人的尾巴，恨不得拖出來打死。有次審稿，一個審稿人給的意見是增加兩篇參考文獻（估計也就是審稿人自己的文章啦），結果作者在回復中寫到，making a reference is not charity！看到之后我當時就笑噴了，可以想象審稿人得被噎成什么樣。正如大家所想的那樣，這篇稿子理所當然的被拒了，雖然

50、后來經編輯調解改成了major revision，但畢竟耽誤的是作者自己的時間不是？第三，合理掌握修改和argue的分寸。所謂修改就是對文章內容進行的修改和補充，所謂argue就是在回復信中對審稿人的答復。這其中大有文章可做，中心思想就是容易改的照改，不容易改的或者不想改的跟審稿人argue。對于語法、拼寫錯誤、某些詞匯的更換、對某些公式和圖表做進一步解釋等相對容易做到的修改，一定要一毫不差的根據審稿意見照做。而對于新意不足、創(chuàng)新性不夠這類根本沒法改的，還有諸如跟算法A，B，C，D做比較，補充大量實驗等短時間內根本沒法完成的任務，我們則要有理有據的argue。在Argue的時候首先要肯定審稿人

51、說的很對，他提出的方法也很好，但本文的重點是blablabla，跟他說的不是一回事。然后為了表示對審稿人的尊重，象征性的在文中加上一段這方面的discussion，這樣既照顧到了審稿人的面子，編輯那也能交待的過去。第四，聰明的掌握修改時間。拿到審稿意見，如果是minor，意見只有寥寥數行，那當然會情不自禁的一蹴而就，一天甚至幾小時搞定修改稿。這時候，問題在于要不要馬上投回去了？我的意見是放一放，多看一看，兩個星期之后再投出去。這樣首先避免了由于大喜過望而沒能及時檢查出的小毛病，還不會讓編輯覺得你是在敷衍他。如果結果是major，建議至少放一個月再投出去，顯得比較鄭重。上面是一些一般性的答復審稿

52、人的策略，在實際中的應用還需要大家見仁見智。下面談談答復信的寫法。寫答復信的唯一目的是讓編輯和審稿人一目了然的知道我們做了哪些修改。因此，所有的格式和寫法都要圍繞這一目的。一般來說可以把答復信分成三部分，即List of Actions, Responses to Editor, Responses to Reviewers。第一部分List of Actions的作用是簡明扼要的列出所有修改的條目，讓編輯和審稿人在第一時間對修改量有個概念，同時它還充當著修改目錄的作用，詳見下面的例子。剩下的兩部分是分別對編輯和審稿人所做的答復，格式可以一樣，按照“意見”“argue”（如果有的話）“修改”這

53、樣逐條進行。清楚醒目起見，可以用不同字體分別標出，比如“意見”用italic，“argue”正常字體，“修改”用bold。下面舉例說明各部分的寫法和格式SCI 投稿全過程信件模板一覽一、最初投稿Cover letterDear Editors:We would like to submit the enclosed manuscript entitled “Paper Title”, which we wish to be considered for publication in “Journal Name”. No conflict of interest exits in the sub

54、mission of this manuscript, and manuscript is approved by all authors for publication. I would like to declare on behalf of my co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part.

55、All the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed.In this work, we evaluated (簡要介紹一下論文的創(chuàng)新性). I hope this paper is suitable for “Journal Name”.The following is a list of possible reviewers for your consideration:1) Name A E-mail: ××××××××2) N

56、ame B E-mail: ××××××××We deeply appreciate your consideration of our manuscript, and we look forward to receiving comments from the reviewers. If you have any queries, please dont hesitate to contact me at the address below.Thank you and best regards.Yours sin

57、cerely,××××××Corresponding author:Name: ×××E-mail: ××××××××Dear Editor-in-Chief,We submit our manuscript entitled “XXXXX” for possible publication in JOURNAL NAME.PUT ABSTRACT HERE!We certify that we have participat

58、ed sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the appropriateness of the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data. All authors have reviewed the final version of the manuscript and approve it for publication. This manuscript has not been published in whole or in part nor

59、is it being considered for publication elsewhere. None of the authors of this manuscript have a financial interest related to this work. Thanks very much for your attention to our manuscriptBest Regards,XXXXAddress xxxxxxxPhoneXXXXXXEmail: xxxxxx二、催稿信Dear Prof. ×××:Sorry for disturbing you. I am not sure if it is the right time to contact you to inquire about the status of my submitted manuscript titled “Paper Title”. (ID: 文章稿號), although the status of “With Editor” has been lasting for more than two mon