At Mars Publications, we do not simply format papers; we bridge the gap between the submitted paper and the published paper. As a leading research advisory, we focus on assisting scholars, doctoral students, and independent researchers in navigating the nightmare of the peer-review process. Whether it involves a complicated analysis of data or multiple rejections, our mission is to make your voice clear and your impact felt.
Between Reviewer Comment Support to the highest developmental editing we guarantee that your work is of the highest standards of the top journals. We can make you change a revision and resubmit into an acceptance.
What the Reviewers Intend by Lacks Contribution
It tends to be an emotional rollercoaster when one receives a peer-review report. You read the text, trying to be complimented, when you run into an obstacle of academic language. One of the most irritating sentences that a researcher may hear is: The manuscript does not make any substantial theoretical or practical contribution.
It feels personal. You took months, maybe years working on the study. In scholarly publishing, however, contribution is a very particular word. The initial step towards an effective revision is an understanding of this feedback. In Mars Publications Reviewer Comment Support, this is a critique that is often deciphered to ensure that authors end up being back at publication.
You Little Gap-Filled Me
Any research paper should be able to define a gap in the knowledge. When someone mentions that you have not contributed, then what a reviewer is trying to tell you is that you have not persuaded him or her that this gap exists, or is significant. You could have presented a problem, but you did not demonstrate that present literature cannot solve it.
To remedy this, see your Introduction. You are not making it clear what we are not aware of? It is not merely a donation that involves doing something new, but doing something needed.
The “So What?” Factor
The reviews seek the so what. of your study. You have discovered statistically significant correlation, but unless that correlation makes us think differently about a theory or makes practitioners do a task differently, the contribution would be said to be incremental.
An incremental study places a small brick to a gigantic wall. Whereas science is constructed in minute steps, the best journals desire a study that will not only overhaul the wall but the very form of the wall. When we offer Reviewer Comment Support, we assist authors to shift their argumentation towards the point of here is what I found, to the point of here is why the field needs to change due to my finding.
Absence of Theoretical Extension
The term contribution is nearly equivalent to theory in the social sciences and humanities. In case your paper is strictly descriptive, that is, it describes what has happened but not how it has happened, in a manner not applicable to other contexts, then the reviews will consider it un contributional.
You will have to interact with theories that are already in existence. Does your result validate an existing model, or do you contravene it? When your data runs against a known theory that is a giant contribution. Do not suppress the strange data, bring it out.
Methodological Rigor vs. Novelty
In some cases, the paper may contain a good idea but not well done. The reviewer cannot believe your results in case your sample size is too small or your methodology is not right. When they are not able to trust the results, then the contribution is nullified.
On the other hand, you may be having ideal ways but a dull question. One of the mistakes is to make a copy without a reason. In the event that you are merely replicating a research conducted in the USA in a UK setting without a clear reviewer will view it as lack of novelty.
The “Local Interest” Trap
This is a common challenge of foreign researchers. It may be thought that the reviewer would say that your study is not generalizable in the case that it is a local school, a company, or a localized local issue.
To prevail over this, you should put your local observations in a global discourse. Take your particular case study and describe a general phenomenon. This makes your work a report, not a contribution.
The way to Refute “Lacks Contribution
In situations where we are called in to help with Reviewer Comment Support, we have a three step process of rebuttal:
- Admit and Accept: Do not defend. Begin by thanking the reviewer that they have pointed at the necessity of a more articulate value proposition.
- Explicitly Declare the Novelty: The phrases such as, unlike the previous studies that concentrated on X, this study presents Y which makes it possible to do Z.
- Enhance the Discussion: Get out of your data. Relate your findings to the questions of the big picture in your discipline.
Hackable Advice on Your Second Draft
Abstract is Your Pitch: Be sure to tell the final two sentences of your abstract definitively: The original contribution to knowledge.
The Contribution Section Some authors have a subheading of a particular section, which is called: Theoretical and Practical Contributions. This renders it impossible to be overlooked by the reviewer.
Synthesize, Not Just Summarize: In your literature review, do not merely report what other people said. Sum up their work in order to indicate where the road leads and where your study starts.
Why Mars Publications?
It is draining to make it through these criticisms. Our Reviewer Comment Support does not just offer grammar checks. We have subject-matter experts reading through the reports of your reviewer and assist you in rewriting your manuscript to suit their expectations. We assist you in locating the contribution in your data that is hidden and putting it on the surface.
Do not allow the lack of contribution remarks to terminate your publishing career. It is commonly simply a call to recount your tale in a better way.