技巧1：先礼后兵，礼貌开头

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript (MS No.: XXX).

These comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made corrections accordingly which we hope meet with your approval. The responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

.......

技巧2：细节修改，不容小觑，一一作答，有礼有节

1. 比如审稿人提出：图中需要补充比例尺

Reply: As for the referee’s concern (或As suggested), we have added scale bars to the Figures.

2. 比如审稿人提出：部分图片没有显著性差异

Reply: Thank you very much for your careful reading of our paper (或We feel so sorry for our carelessness), we have indicated a significant difference with asterisk in the figures and also checked all the other figures. We confirm that all figures are correct now. (一旦被指出某一点问题，也要一并检查这一类问题，确保所有图片没有同样的情况)

3. 比如审稿人提出：某些具体的参考文献作者名字不对，或期刊名不对，或不是英文文献等

Reply: 套路同2—首先回复已更正了这些被指出的文献问题，另外还检查了其他文献，并做了相应更改，确认所有文献现在都正确。(一旦被指出某一点问题，也要一并检查这一类问题，杜绝再次出现，也可以减轻后期proof的校对工作)

4. 比如审稿人提出：通篇语言存在问题，建议母语化润色

Reply: We feel so sorry for the mistakes in the manuscript and inconvenience they caused in your reading. The manuscript has been thoroughly revised and edited by a native English speaker (或The language in our revised manuscript has been professionally edited and verified by a native English speaker), we hope it can meet the standard for final publication. Thank you very much for your precious comments. (这种情况只能进行母语化润色，如果语言只是稍微有点问题，建议再仔细阅读几遍全文加以修改)

5. 比如审稿人提出：补充XXX缩写词的全称

Reply: 套路同2—首先回复已补充了这些被指出的缩写词的全称，另外再检查文中其他缩写词是否也有这种情况，该标全的标全，确认所有缩写词第一次被使用时都标明了全称。

6. 比如审稿人提出：裂解液成分有问题

Reply: We are very sorry for the mistake. Lentivirus-transduced cells were washed twice with PBS, and suspended in a lysis buffer (2% mercaptoethanol, 20% glycerol, and 4% SDS, in 100 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 6.8). The information for the lysis buffer has been corrected in the materials and methods. (先回复下正确的成分应该是什么，并说明这些信息已在文中被同步更正过来了)

技巧3：补充实验，耗时耗力，如果不补，只能argue

1. 比如审稿人提出：补充正常皮肤细胞作对照

Tips: 如果你真的不想补，或者也买不到正常细胞株，还是查一查正常细胞株的名字，告诉审稿人你确实努力过，只是事与愿违啊！

Reply: Indeed, it will be more convincing if we get a comparative assessment on normal keratinocytes. However, the normal skin cell line TE 353.SK that we recently obtained could not be cultured stably under the condition of our lab at this time. We are also collecting human tissue samples from patients with primary melanoma and benign nevi. Based on our data, XXX expression will be analyzed in clinical samples by immunohistochemistry, and the correlation between XXX expression and the prognosis of melanoma will be determined in our subsequent investigations. Therefore, the referee’s concern is of importance for our further study, and we will show the results in our next paper for XXX.

2. 比如审稿人提出：补充体内实验

Tips: 补充动物实验，是审稿人常提的问题，一点不令人意外。既然躲不过，就见招拆招。如果能补上，自然极好；如果没有条件补，或者实验来不及，也要尽量说的委婉点，假装你确实努力了！

Reply: We deeply appreciative the reviewer’s suggestion. Indeed, it will be more profound if we get the relevant results in vivo.

我们去买了若干只小鼠，按照文献的方法操作: We have purchased 10 thymus-null BALB/c nude mice (female, age 4-6 weeks) from the Animal Center of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Osteosarcoma xenografts were established in nude mice according to a previous report (Gao et al., 2009). Briefly, control lentivirus or XXX gene shRNA-expressing lentivirus infected XXX cells (1×105) were suspended in 0.1 ml PBS and then injected subcutaneously into the proximal tibia of each anesthetized nude mice (n = 5 in each group). Unfortunately, the xenografts could not grow after inoculation for three weeks (满怀欣喜的接种到动物身上，然而实验这东西，哪能一遍就成呢，我们做了一遍，结果没能成瘤，实在是悲剧了). The limitation of technical condition may be the main reason. Also, we doubt that the cell viability could be insufficient to initiate osteosarcoma tumorigenesis in vivo due to the long-distance transport.

Therefore, we seek for the editor’s tolerance and understanding. Many thanks for your kind help!

Reference: Gao et al. (2009) …………

补充实验，究竟是申请延期，老老实实把实验做完，还是投机取巧argue一下，要看自己的运气了。一般情况，可以对照审稿人的意见综合权衡。高分文章，最好还是该补的全补了，低分文章，如果你觉得有80%的把握，完全可以凭你的劲爆人品成功拿下审稿人。

技巧4：审稿人的其他一些疑虑

Tips: 审稿人对文章提出的其他一些疑惑，不是仅仅为了得到你的回复，能消除这些疑惑的statement，都应尽可能地融合到文章里，让它成为文章的一部分，而不是Response里写了一大堆，正文里却一句话没有，毕竟最后发表的是Article，而不是Response。

Reply: 先仔细作解释，并声明在修改稿中已对这些意见作了相应的补充。(注意是融合到文章中，而不是直接复制冗长的解释到文章里。融合到文中的目的既丰富了文章内容，也是为了在文章发表后可以消除其他读者同样的疑虑)

总之，所有的意见回复和修改，都是为了让文章更好更快的接收！