Merevisi artikel

Anda pernah mengirim artikel ke jurnal international? Apakah langsung diterima tanpa revisi? Jika pernah dan langsung diterima, ada dua kemungkinan: tulisan Anda benar-benar sempurna atau kredibilitas jurnal tersebut dipertanyakan. Untuk kasus yang pertama, ketahuilah Anda hanya segelintir dari akademisi yang menikmati kemewahan tersebut. Untuk kasus yang kedua, ada baiknya Anda berpikir ulang untuk mengirimkan artikel ke jurnal tersebut. Seorang kawan bahkan pernah iseng mengirimkan sebuah artikel ke sebuah jurnal internasional yang dia duga “abal-abal”. Pagi hari dia kirim artikel, dan sore hari ada notifikasi diterima tanpa revisi. Ruarrrr biasa!

Dengan mentoleransi praktik tidak etis ini, Anda tidak akan pernah merasakan “greng” ketika artikel yang dibuat dengan kerja keras dan cucuran keringat tersebut akhirnya diterima untuk diterbitkan. Proses ini, jika Anda beruntung, memakan waktu beberapa bulan, tetapi tidak jarang di atas dua tahun, setelah beberapa kali revisi. Bahkan seorang kawan harus menelan pil pahit setelah dua tahun dan melakukan revisi beberapa kali, dan akhirnya artikelnya ditolak. Tetapi, ini adalah bagian dari “permainan”. Ketika kita menyasar jurnal dengan reputasi tinggi, siap-siap “sakitnya” ketika mengalami kejadian seperti ini, atau siap-siap juga untuk “grengnya” ketika diterima. Seorang kawan mengibaratkan seperti habis melahirkan, ketika mengetahui artikel yang ditulisnya diterima di sebuah jurnal dengan reputasi bagus.

Mendapatkan komentar dari reviewer, melakukan revisi, atau bahkan mendapati artikel kita ditolak adalah hal yang sangat lumrah dalam dunia penerbitan jurnal internasional (termasuk konferensi internasional, tentunya). Jika artikel kita diminta oleh reviewer untuk direvisi, kita sudah seharusnya bersyukur, karena tidak ditolak, atau tidak *langsung* ditolak. Artinya, ada bagian dalam artikel kita yang menjanjikan untuk dipublikasikan. Biasanya konferensi mempunyai tradisi review sekali jalan (single round review), sedang jurnal beberapa kali review (multiple round review).

Ketika artikel kita belum diterima, merasa sedih atau kecewa hal yang biasa, tetapi jangan berkelanjutan. Apa yang harus dilakukan ketika kita mendapatkan komentar dari reviewer? Jika emosi kita tidak mengizinkan saat itu, jangan dahulu baca komentarnya. Mengapa? Ingat, tidak semua reviewer cukup sopan dalam memberikan komentar. Tidak jarang komentar yang “sangat pedas” bisa kita dapatkan, dan cukup untuk membuat kuping kita merah dan hati kita panas. Simpan saja beberapa hari sampai kita merasa siap membacanya.

Siap? Bisa jadi, Anda beruntung ketika mendapatkan komentar yang sangat membantu dalam merevisi artikel. Komentar yang baik seharusnya memberikan arahan bagaimana artikel bisa diperbaiki.

Pertama, baca komentar reviewer beberapa kali, jika perlu, untuk memahami maksudnya. Biasanya kita minimal mendapatkan komentar dari dua reviewer, dan kadang lebih dari dua. Kita, sekali lagi beruntung, jika komentar dari reviewer-reviewer tersebut menuju pada arah yang sama, dan tidak bertolak belakang. Untuk kasus terakhir, perlu strategi khusus. Beberapa komentar mudah untuk ditindaklanjuti (seperti kita lupa menuliskannya atau menuliskan tetapi tidak cukup detil), beberapa yang lain kadang memerlukan pemikiran lebih, bahan tambahan, analisis ulang data.

Kedua, pilah komentar tersebut per reviewer dan per tema. Bisa jadi beberapa pertanyaan dari reviewer yang sama bisa dikelompokkan. Jika lebih satu penulis terlibat, buat kesepakatan tentang pengelompokkan. Bagi pekerjaan revisi jika memungkinkan. Sepakati bagaimana revisi dilakukan, termasuk misalnya, seberapa banyak material baru yang dimasukkan, karena tidak jarang dalam revisi kita menghadapi kendala terbatasnya jumlah kata atau halaman dalam sebuah artikel.

Ketiga, setelah revisi dilakukan, dan kadang memerlukan waktu beberapa bulan, kirim ulang artikel. Ingat, pekerjaan Anda tidak hanya menulis dan merevisi artikel. Belum lagi, jika artikel ditulis lebih dari satu penulis dan memerlukan diskusi untuk menyamakan pandangan. Tetapi jika Anda ingin menarik artikel dan tidak ingin mengirimkan ulang karena komentar reviewer terlalu *negatif* dan sulit ditindaklanjuti, segera kabari (associate) editor atau (track) chair.

Dalam mengirim ulang, praktik yang baik adalah dengan melampirkan laporan revisi kepada (associate) editor atau (track) chair. Berikut adalah contoh laporan revisi yang pernah saya buat:

Revision Report:
 “Judul artikel”

We thank the review panel for their critical but insightful comments. Addressing those comments resulted in an improved paper. We thank both reviewers for their kind words and positive comments about the originality of our paper and its contribution to the literature.

In the table below, we document how we have addressed the comments from the two reviewers. Although, to enable us to do so, we were given the liberty by xxxxx to go over the word limit normal for a xxxxx article, we still took care to be concise and succinct. As a result, the paper is about 6400 words long (excluding abstracts and author biographies). We do hope that you will find the revisions meet the quality standard required by the xxxxx.

Review #1

The reviewer’s comments	Our responses
Please make the motivation clearer in introduction. As it is, the motivation is too much mechanical and I do not see what is the problem in eProcurement domain and how institutional theory can contribute to solve or understand the nature of the problem.	We have revised the introduction section by presenting stronger motivation and specifying the research questions. The problem is formulated not as specific to e-procurement but to use of institutional theory especially in the e-government sector
Please add a separate conclusion section and authors are advised to add research limitations and further research directions in the conclusion.	We have added the conclusion section and a sub-section on the limitations of the research along with further research directions. Other future research directions are also presented in the sub-sections on the practical and theoretical implications.
Practical implication needs more extension.	We have concisely elaborated practical implications by adding a new sub-section.

Review #2

The reviewer’s comments	Our responses
The authors can further improve the abstract and its individual sub-heading by adding more information to it. For instance, for the purpose, the authors can add few more lines to set the scene before directly jumping to the purpose – i.e. clearly stating the WHY question. Similar comment for research limitations/implication and originality/value headings.	We have improved the abstract by adding more elaborative sentences.Consequently, now its length is a bit over the limit.
The introduction needs to be strengthened, as currently it does not set the scene appropriately.	We have revised the introduction section by presenting stronger motivation and specifying the research questions.
Section 2 is well defined and presented. However, the conceptual findings need to be clearly stated.	We have added short paragraphs summarizing the conceptual findings at the end of the description of each concept.
There is considerable connectivity with the normative literature. However, the authors are suggested here to broaden their focus on using top ranking journals.	We have referred to articles from top ranking journals from IS, Management and Organization studies. In fact 23 out of 48 references are from this top level. We have also referred to articles from highly regarded journals in ICT4D and e-government.
This section can significantly improve, if the research methodology is properly justified and diagrammatically presented, as this will be transparent to the readers.	We have enhanced this section by adding justification for selecting the research methodology. We also presented a diagram depicted the detailed research methodology.
The conclusion is far too short and does not clearly interpret the content of the study. The authors are advised to re-write the conclusion.There is no future research directions presented as the existing research has limitations in terms of statistical analysis. The authors have also not presented any limitations to their existing work in the end.	We have now added a new Conclusion section which specifically includes a sub-section on the limitations of the research along with further research directions. Other future research directions are also presented in the sub-sections on the practical and theoretical implications.
Only theoretical implications presented. However, I would like to see implications to practice and society as well and briefly in the abstract.	We have concisely elaborated practical implications by adding a new sub-section. We have also elaborated it in the abstract.

Jika tidak semua saran atau komentar dapat kita penuhi atau kita setuju dengannya, berikan alasan di kolom kedua. Berikut adalah contoh lain yang di dalamnya ada argumen mengapa saya harus menindaklanjuti komentar dengan cara lain.

The reviewer’s comments	My responses
Add citations to other papers that have adopted Gronlund’s categorization by focusing on how has techno-centric/online service delivery been used. Further, online service delivery efforts can actually focus on the organizational change issues associated with the adoption of such a service.	I had difficulties to find papers that have adopted Gronlund’s categorization. Instead, to achieve the same purpose I had added a paragraph in sub-section 2.2. I do agree with the reviewer’s comment that the categorization is not mutually exclusive. Hence, I expect that this additional explanation will clarify how the categorization was used to group the papers. I have cited two other Gronlund’s papers to provide illustration.
Clarify the source of some of the recommendations for a research agenda.	I have added some specific references to the findings in Tables.
The information about the chronology of publications should be part of the findings section (instead of method section).	I have moved this part backwards from the method section to the findings section with some adjustments.
Table 6 should be bigger in terms of that you provide some more detailed description of the sub-themes (column 1: theme, column 2 sub-theme, column 3 description of sub-themes, column 4 status quo of sub-theme; column 5 future research on that sub-theme). The table could then be somewhat a summary.	In order to maintain the storyline of the paper, instead on addressing this comment (Table 6) separately from the next one (Table 7), I have amended Table 6 by adding new column to provide description of each sub-theme. Future research for sub-themes has been included in the descriptions of each theme (Table 7). Admittedly, it was somehow difficult (and perhaps less interesting) to come up with specific future research for EACH sub-theme since the focus of the study was on the level of theme, and the sub-themes were expected to provide detailed explanation.
Note that Table 7 presents future research on the level of themes. However, this should be on the level of sub-themes as well: You build up complexity and detail; why dropping it here?
Contras the directions for future research against corresponding directions for e-government research in developed countries, as possibly reported by relevant studies.Given that the study was inspired by the lack of research in developing countries and expected differences from developed countries, it would be good to mention if and how the current findings compare with those of previous studies in developed countries. For example, what are the major points of difference revealed? Are there any similarities?	I have added a new sub-section (4.2) to provide a concise ‘comparison’.
With respect to the choice of conceptual model, it would be good to explicitly mention alternative approaches considered (not just references) and explain better why they were not suitable.	I have rewritten this part to provide explanation.

Keempat, kerja-keras sudah dilakukan, sekarang saatnya berdoa dan menunggu: apakah akan ada revisi lanjutan atau ini revisi yang terakhir. Berdoalah untuk yang kedua. 🙂 Laporan hanya merangkum bagaimana kita menindaklanjuti saran atau komentar dari reviewer. Tentu yang menentukan, pada akhirnya, adalah kualitas revisi yang kita buat dalam artikel dan bukan laporan revisi.

Semoga bermanfaat!

Kristiansand, 11 Oktober 2012