7

Recently, a paper of mine received a major revision. Among different comments, one reviewer asked "the authors to include dataset section in MS". Now, my problem with this request is that the data is too big (monthly precipitation and temperature for 30 years from 11 stations!) to be included within the MS itself. The data should be requested to upload as supplementary files, rather than inside the paper itself. And I know the reviewer was not accidentally misusing the word "MS", since his other requests were completely precise. So... My question is, am I missing something? Did the reviewer mean something else? Beside the raw data itself?

These are his exact words: "The authors should first tell the reader what data you have, and you will use in this manuscript. The authors include Data Set section in MS. It is also requested to inform about the source of data."

Anyon
  • 26,132
  • 8
  • 87
  • 116
Ghostly guest
  • 105
  • 3
  • 1
    Many journals support uploading to the site. Check with the editors. – Captain Emacs Feb 01 '21 at 16:21
  • 8
    Is the comment instead to include a dedicated section explaining the data? I haven't heard of people having to include all the data in the manuscript itself. – kjacks21 Feb 01 '21 at 16:22
  • 1
    https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/987, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65925 show where you can put your data. I, personally, recommend Zenodo. In my eyes, it suffices to describe the data in a manuscript section and to put there a link to the actual data. Yet again, <8k lines of CSV can go to the journal webpage. – Oleg Lobachev Feb 01 '21 at 17:03
  • @SHD404 In which country are you working? Depending on the country, you might have different options. E.g. in Germany you might upload your data to Pangaea or to the WDCC. – daniel.heydebreck Feb 02 '21 at 07:59
  • 1
    "received a major revision" would mean that it has been modified a lot, I think you meant that the reviewers requested a major revision? – Marc Glisse Feb 02 '21 at 12:01
  • @MarcGlisse In English, you can often shorten phrases like "received a request for a major revision" to "received a major revision" as the meaning is clear. It's perfectly idiomatic. – Azor Ahai -him- Feb 02 '21 at 16:27

1 Answers1

32

They are not asking you to copy-and-paste the data into the paper in a "dataset section." They want you to devote more space to explaining what the dataset is and where you got it. Presumably, you did not collect it, so it should be easy to post to the government source.

That said, 7920 data points is tiny and could easily be included in a CSV file (but I digress). If they want you to share it, you could upload it somewhere else and link to it. But since this sounds like a publicly available government dataset, your time would be better spent making sure your preparation of the data is replicable.

Azor Ahai -him-
  • 30,111
  • 9
  • 88
  • 115
  • 2
    Thank you for your comment. Your answer makes much more sense than my initial interpretation of the reviewer's comment! And yes, the raw data is openly accessible, so by following your advise, I would clarify my data preparation process and make sure the data source is refered to, clearly and precisely. Thanks! – Ghostly guest Feb 01 '21 at 16:39
  • 1
    Maybe you can even add a 30 line script in the appendix that downloads the data from the original source? That would be the cherry on top of the cream! – usr1234567 Feb 02 '21 at 14:29