Writing Rejoinders

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Writing Rejoinders

• Skills Session
• HCSNet Summerfest 2008
• Roger Dean and Denis Burnham

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Outline

• Grant Writing Timetable and Rejoinders
• What is a Rejoinder?
• Stages in Writing a Rejoinder
• Tips on Writing Rejoinders
• Rejoinders to Grant Reviews
  vs Replies to Journal Paper Reviews
• Examples, Questions, Discussion

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Grant Writing Timetable and Rejoinders

• Based on ARC (Australian Research Council)
  Discovery Grant System
• Grant Timetable
• End Feb Submit grant application
• July or so Reviews (N2/3 5) sent to
  applicants
• 10 days later Rejoinder
• The Role of the Rejoinder
• Rejoinders are important and can make a
  difference to outcomes, especially for
  applications on the cusp

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What is a Rejoinder?

• A Response to the Reviewers Comments
• In place of the previous interview procedure
• Gives everyone a chance to respond to
  comments/criticisms
• In ARC Discovery Grants rejoinders must be
  5,000 characters (including spaces), i.e., about
  1 page
• A mechanism by which you can increase your
  chances of funding

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Stages in Writing a Rejoinder

• Read the reviews thoroughly asap
• Identify the Questions, Criticisms, and even
  Gifts
• Questions
• Criticisms
• Gifts
• Establish overlaps between reviewers ? refined
  set of Questions, Criticisms Gifts

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Stages in Writing a Rejoinder(cont)

• Write initial draft of rejoinder which is about
  the right length (but can be longer) that
  addresses
• the questions, criticisms and gifts
• Optional Step - If you feel like it, include in
  the rejoinder draft combative aspects that
  address
• what you perceive to be shortcomings in the
  reviewers understanding, intellect etc. -)
• Leave it for a day or 2 (at the most)
• Rewrite the Rejoinder
• Getting it to about the right length
• Leaving out ALL negative comments
• Get as many people as possible (collaborators,
  colleagues, Research Office personnel) to read
  and comment on the rejoinder (and give them time
  to read it)

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Tips on Writing Rejoinders

• The reviewers are not out to get you use the
  rejoinder as a platform to showcase and elaborate
• Assert and be positive rather than defend in a
  negative fashion
• Address rejoinder to the panel (of non-experts),
  not to the reviewers
• the reviewers will not read the rejoinder but the
  panel will, and will evaluate how you address the
  issues
• Avoid jargon even if a reviewer has used jargon
  remember you are addressing the (non-expert)
  panel
• When referring to reviewers use their numbers
  (e.g., DL65897)
• If there is a particular review which you would
  like to be put aside and not considered, request
  this, but based on a logical reasoned argument
  avoid pique

Stop Press from Sally Andrews
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Stop Press from Sally Andrews

• The most important thing for people to remember
  about rejoinders is that they are NOT writing
  them to the reviewers. The only people who read
  them are the two panel members assigned to their
  grant (and there's a reasonable chance that only
  the first of these will read them at all
  carefully). That person may well be very distant
  from the applicant's particular area so there is
  no point in getting into nitpicking details that
  cannot be understood without a lot of background
  knowledge. What panel members are looking for is
  information that will allow them to adjudicate
  between discrepant reviewer comments/scores (and
  of course the applicant does not necessarily know
  that the scores were discrepant) or help them to
  evaluate the validity of a negative review. It is
  also important for people to remember is that the
  panel member(s) may well be reading LOTS of them
  - so clarity of expression, content and even
  formatting is important.

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Format of Rejoinders

• Formatting is lost in the ARC on-line system
• Important to provide some structure, e.g.,
• Start with positives and go onto criticisms
• Use all or some of the categories that the
  reviewers are asked to use, i.e.,
• Significance and Innovation,
• Approach and Methodology,
• National Benefit,
• Research Team Track Record - Overall Score,
• How could this Proposal be improved?,
• Any other comments on this Proposal
• Go through each reviewers comments in turn

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Tips on Writing Rejoinders (cont)

• Do not waste space repeating verbatim long tracts
  of what the reviewers have said
• Focus particularly on critical aspects of the
  application that you think have led to any
  adverse comments by the reviewers

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Tips on Writing Rejoinders (cont)

• To save space and increase cohesiveness try to
  address similar points from different reviewers
  in same statement
• As appropriate assure the panel that you expected
  some of the negative comments - space constraints
  probably mean that you did not covered everything
  in the application, so now is your chance
• If you think the reviews are really excellent
• Check with a colleague to see whether they agree
  with your assessment
• Use the rejoinder to elaborate on aspects of the
  application that you want to strengthen or to add
  weight to the budget requests
• Use rejoinder to update the panel on further
  developments, e.g., relevant publications,
  results of relevant studies, from say honours
  theses or internal grants

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Rejoinders to Grant Reviews vs Replies to
Journal Paper Reviews

• Roger to talk on this

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Examples, Questions, Discussion

• Give us your examples real or hypothetical