Nature Reviews Cancer Response to Reviewers: How to Revise a Commissioned Review

Use this as the skeleton before you start answering individual comments.

Dear Editor,

Thank you for returning the referee reports and editorial guidance on our Review,
"[working title]." We have revised the manuscript to address the main concerns
about balance, scope, figure clarity, and the distinction between established
consensus and emerging interpretation.

The largest changes are:

1. We narrowed the central thesis in the Introduction and revised the final
   section to avoid overstating [claim]. See page 2, lines 18-34, and page 14,
   lines 6-28.
2. We added a new subsection on [countervailing evidence or competing model],
   including the studies requested by Reviewer 2. See page 7, lines 3-31.
3. We redrew Figure 2 so that it now compares the two mechanistic models rather
   than presenting only our preferred interpretation.
4. We removed the paragraph on [topic] because it broadened the Review beyond
   the commissioned scope.

Below, we respond point by point. Reviewer comments are reproduced in italics.
Author responses are in regular text. Page and line numbers refer to the revised
manuscript.

Reviewer 1, Comment 1:
"The Review does not adequately cover the evidence against [claim]."

Response:
We agree that the original version gave insufficient space to this competing
interpretation. We have revised the section "..." to add the studies by [A],
[B], and [C], and we now explain where those findings conflict with the model
advanced in the original draft. See page 7, lines 3-31. We also changed Figure 2
so that the alternative model is shown explicitly rather than mentioned only in
the text.

That template has four features the editor needs:

• a short editor-facing summary before the point-by-point section;
• exact page and line references in the first page of the response;
• a typography rule that distinguishes reviewer text from author responses;
• a revision narrative that names conceptual changes, not just surface edits.

Do not answer every Nature Reviews Cancer reviewer as if they reviewed the same article type.

This is the most common failure pattern we see in review-article rebuttals: authors answer every critique with "we added text." For Nature Reviews Cancer, the better question is what kind of authority the article is claiming. A Review needs balanced synthesis. A Perspective needs disciplined opinion. A Consensus Statement needs process credibility. A Technical Review needs method-selection clarity.

Every substantive answer should include a page and line reference. Put the rule in the first page of the rebuttal:

Page and line numbers refer to the revised manuscript. Reviewer comments are reproduced in italic text; author responses are in regular text.

Do not save this convention for later. Reviewers should be able to audit the revised manuscript while reading the response. If the response says "we clarified this point" without a page or line reference, the reviewer has to hunt for the change. That creates friction exactly when you need the second-round read to feel easy.

For figure revisions, cite the figure and caption:

• "See revised Figure 2 and caption, page 9, lines 4-18."
• "See the new Box 1, page 6, lines 1-22."
• "See the revised section heading and transition paragraph, page 10, lines 11-29."

Think twice before pushing back if the comment is about:

• balance across schools of thought;
• missing counter-evidence;
• overclaiming a therapeutic or mechanistic implication;
• figure clarity;
• article-type mismatch;
• language that sounds like original research priority rather than review synthesis.

Those comments usually identify risk to the article's Nature Reviews function. Most rejection-on-revision risk comes from authors treating those comments as optional preference rather than central editorial feedback.

The rejection risk is not hypothetical. Most failed review-article rebuttals we see do not fail because the author was rude. They fail because the response letter answers comments while the revised article still teaches the same unbalanced or overbroad argument.

Push back only when a requested addition would make the article less accurate or outside scope. Even then, offer a boundary edit:

We have not added a full section on [topic] because it would expand the Review beyond the commissioned scope. To help readers place the issue, we added a short boundary paragraph on page 12, lines 8-17, and cite two recent overviews for readers who need that detail.

That is different from simply saying no.

In our pre-submission review work with oncology review manuscripts, the Nature Reviews Cancer revision problems we flag most often are not grammar problems. They are structure problems. The manuscripts that look most vulnerable on revision usually have a polished response letter and a still-unrepaired review architecture.

Failure pattern 1: citation repair without argument repair. The author adds the papers requested by the referee, but the paragraph still ends with the same conclusion. The second-round reviewer can see the citation, but not the changed judgment. This is especially risky for Nature Reviews Cancer because the journal's reader promise is interpretive synthesis, not bibliography expansion.

Failure pattern 2: local responses without article-level restructuring. Each reviewer comment receives a polite answer, but the review's thesis, heading sequence, and main figure still guide the reader toward the original framing. In our reviews, this is the pattern most likely to create rejection-on-revision risk because the editor sees activity without resolution.

Failure pattern 3: display items that stay decorative. Nature Reviews Cancer articles rely heavily on figures, boxes, and conceptual display items. If a reviewer says the argument is unclear and the response only revises prose, the package may still fail because the figure continues to teach the old model.

Failure pattern 4: scope defense without a boundary edit. Authors often say a requested topic is outside scope, then leave readers with no explanation of that boundary. A better revision adds a short boundary paragraph or box note, so the editor can see that the exclusion is principled rather than evasive.

Before uploading the revision, run a response audit:

Methodology note. This page was researched from the current Nature Reviews Cancer author pages, the journal's editorial-process page, the official editor page, the Nature Reviews referee guidance, and the PLOS response-to-reviewers canon. We checked those sources against the existing Manusights Nature Reviews Cancer cluster so this URL owns revision-response intent rather than proposal, submission-guide, cover-letter, metric, or rejection-recovery intent.

For this journal, we do not audit the response as if it were a standard cancer-research rebuttal. We first map each reviewer comment to one of four revision jobs: balance, interpretive synthesis, article-type discipline, or display-item logic. Then we check whether the revised manuscript changed at the right level.

That distinction matters commercially and editorially. A normal rebuttal review can tell you whether every reviewer comment received an answer. A Nature Reviews Cancer revision-readiness check should tell you whether the answers actually repair the commissioned review. If the response says the authors clarified a point, but the heading, figure, and concluding claim still push the same contested interpretation, the answer is not ready.

Use the Nature Reviews Cancer journal overview if you need the broader journal context. Use this page only when you already have reviewer or editor comments and need to decide whether the revised review package is safe to upload.