论文投稿 审稿

第一篇：论文投稿 审稿

我的论文投稿与审稿经历

文章来源： 文章作者： 发布时间：2010-02-11字体： [大 中 小]

我的论文投稿与审稿经历前两天一篇文章刚刚被synth met接收了,历时八个月,这个倒也无关紧要了,总比之前提的另一篇(也是这个杂志),历时九个月,催了好几次,终于回复一下,说是图不清楚,于是给拒了.那时抓狂的心都有了.算到现在,也投了无数次的稿子了,心得倒也有了一点.首先,投稿当然要好好的看清杂志的投搞要求,是什么样的格式,需要什么样的材料,是一个个的传图还是放到文章里面,需要图表摘要否?图的尺寸与分辨率是不是达到要求?就是这个分辨率的事,我在投JAPS的时候来来回回改动了六七次,最终才终于达到了要求,我觉得可能也是因为格式不太对,所以审的时候也就很长(大约七八个月),后来有了这次教训,又投了一回稿了,格式完全正确,在一个月之后就接收了.其次,要反反复复的多改几次文章,很多人一开始写完了一篇英文文章(尤其是第一次写的),总是觉得很完美了,因为这应该说是一次挑战.但很多情况下,这样写出来的文章里面的毛病可能是一堆一堆的,如果自己不来回推敲上三四次的话,拿出来可能会让人笑话,因为里面说不定就有一个诸如a,an,单数复数等非常简单的语法问题.这时建议把稿子隔两天看一遍,改得差不多了,再找同组的师兄弟姐妹们看一下,差不多 了还应该找一个外语比较牛的(当然如果自己的外语很牛也当然OK)过一遍,最后如果导师负责任的话他再帮你修改,也会有导师不太看的时候,那你就自己拿定主意投吧.再次,COVER LETTER一定要好好的检查,一定不要犯下以桃代李的错误.有人会在某杂志退稿之后,再改投别的期刊,但匆匆之中就忘了把Cover letter里面的杂志名称换了,于是这让编辑会比较郁闷,比较开明的编辑可能会跟你开玩笑,但有时也会有编辑说你既然是投这个杂志,那你发错地方了,干脆就给拒掉.所以,万事小心.还有,推荐审稿人,这个有时也是一个很关键的因素,有的人可能会不屑于此,不过这真得不是一个应该忽视的问题.很多人可能习惯于推荐自己熟悉的人,这当然无可厚非,但也不能总是这样来选,我觉得在你的参考文献里引用的较多的人,应该尽量推荐一下.另外,也可以选择你引过他的一篇文献,但却有点重点引用的意思.这样,这个审稿人看到你的引用,会心情稍好.呵.另外,作为审稿人,也曾经审过了近二十篇的文章,当然里面有大部分是帮导师审稿.从审稿人的角度,我觉得第一点你的英语表达一定不要出现一些太明显的小错误,否则会让审稿人觉得你不重视这次投稿;其实,你的投稿过程一定要谨慎,可能你投完了之后没有检查一下,结果会落了某个图也不一定(我刚刚就碰到这样的稿子),这也会使人觉得你不细心;还有就是一定要突出你的重点,如果在摘要里看不到你的亮点,会让人很难有兴趣抱着一颗要接收的心来看,那时有可能就是在尽量挑你的毛病.暂时想到这么多了,希望能跟大家分享。

第二篇：运动会投稿须知和审稿制度

2017运动会投稿须知

同学们，校运会己经开始了，赛场已随枪声而沸腾，你是否也难抑心中的激动？那就把心情融入纸笔，为运动员呐喊助威，为成功者喝彩，给失利者安慰，写下班级风采，写下健儿精神吧！以下是此次校运会投稿的注意事项：

1、计分规则：过一审，加1分，过二审，再加1分。

2、每个班级3天仅限投稿100篇，每个半天每班的稿件数量不得超过20张，最后半天不得超过10张，超出的部分不作数。

3、每篇稿件字数请控制在80-200左右。

4、稿件要求：字迹工整，纸张整洁，每篇稿件纸张至少要一半科作业纸大小，字迹潦草，纸张破损纸张不整洁不予录用。

5、稿件内容富有真情实感，不空泛。

6、严禁抄袭（两句以上视为抄袭，诗句，名人名言，歌词除外），一经发现扣三分。

7、干扰审稿工作的班级，酌情扣分。

投稿时间：上午8:20——10：00

下午：2:00——4：30 投稿地点：主席台

注：此次投稿加分皆会记入此次校运会班级量化总分，每半天公布一次加分情况，截稿后才可查询；为了符合二级达标的规范，现在只有写给运动员的加油稿才能被广播站播报，其余如写给裁判员等非运动员的稿件通过审查的可照常加分，但不予以播报。

2017.10.17

第三篇：论文评审稿稿

幼儿园体育活动的实践与探索

评审稿

摘要：法国著名学家蒂索从医学的角度来评价体育活动：“运动能代替药品，但世界上任何药品都不能取代运动的好处”。幼儿期是身体发育最快的时期，而运动则成为他们锻炼身体的客观需要，以实现其身体发育和运动能力发展的平衡。从心理发展的角度看，运动则是幼儿探索客体环境的最有效手段，他们不仅需要通过运动来感知世界，而且需要通过运动来积累经验，从而为他们的心理发展打下基础。因此，不论从新《纲要》提出的幼儿园任务，即对幼儿实施体、智、德、美全面发展的教育中，还是从幼儿一日活动内容时间安排中，都将体育活动放在幼儿园教育活动的重要位置。

关键词：体育活动 锻炼身体平衡

前言：户外体育区域活动是幼儿园体育活动的一种特殊的组织形式，是对幼儿园基本的体育活动形式的一种补充。它是指幼儿在一定的体育活动区域内自主自愿的游戏活动。它可以打破幼儿年龄、班级界限。扩大幼儿之间的接触与交往，使幼儿在活动过程中，相互影响、共同提高与发展，同时也能满足幼儿多方面的需要，充分体现幼儿是活动的主人。

新《纲要》指出：“幼儿园的教育活动，是教师以多种形式有目的、有计划地引导幼儿生动活泼、主动活动的教育过程”。我们西塘镇中心幼儿园积极贯彻落实《规程》精神，在保证每天一小时体育活动时间的基础上，精心设计新颖多变的游戏活动，有目的、有计划地 1 引导幼儿积极探索游戏的玩法；同时。因地制宜，充分搜集废旧物品和自然物制作各种户外体育器械，并且就开展户外分区体育活动进行了一系列的研究。

(一)注重对户外体育区域活动的研究

《纲要》中明确地把“为幼儿提供健康、丰富的生活和活动环境，他们多方面发展的需要”作为重要内容之一，这对促进幼儿发展，逐步提高教育质量具有十分重要的意义，为此，我们在户外区域活动上作了一些探索，我们幼儿园是20世纪90年代初新建的园所，办学规模不大，没有多余的辅助用房，对开展区域活动有一定的困难，因此，我们把重点放在户外体育区域活动上，并进行了一年多的课题跟踪研究，取得了阶段性的成绩。与2002年进行全园性推广、普及。

1、积极创设适宜、丰富、多样的体育活动环境

首先我们充分挖掘并利用幼儿园现有的户外活动场地和锻炼器械的最大功效，巧妙地利用与开发环境，按一定方式进行区域划分，按不同的基本动作进行分区。将全园的场地、器械按照其功能的不同，幼儿年龄层次、能力差异的不同分成了各种活动区，如：钻爬区、触跳区、投掷区、平衡区、拍球区、综合区等，保证幼儿户外锻炼的时间，将体育课与户外体育活动有机结合，因地置宜，充分利用阳光、空气、水等自然因素，合理规范地设置场地。这种区域式活动使得孩子们锻炼的目的性强、层次性、差异性得到了保证。其次，教师们自己动手利用废旧材料制作了大量简易而牢固、美观而实用的晨间体育 2 器械。如用易拉罐制作了练习近平衡能力及训练幼儿胆量的“梅花桩”，用可乐瓶做成套圈的“靶子”、用铁丝制作了会滚动的铁环等。另外在户外活动场地的创设上我们不仅注重物质条件——“硬环境” 的创设，而且还注重文化氛围——“软环境”的营造，把“硬环境”和“软环境”紧密结合。刚开始我们各区域没有标志，幼儿活动时较盲目，发现问题后我们马上在各个活动区域内，设置明显的标志，在标志上配上符合区域特点的图画文字，创设文化背景，如在活动区里：我们设置了“我勇敢”、“互相帮助”、“不推不挤”以及各种体育动态等图画，让幼儿从中学会不怕困难，勇敢坚强；学会互相谦让，学会合作。环境的创设为幼儿开展体育活动提供了物质的保证。充分体现了《纲要》中健康领域的要求：即“在体育活动中，培养幼儿坚强、勇敢、不怕困难的意志品质和主动、乐观、合作”的思维理念。

2、积极开展晨间分区体育活动

为了让孩子们在活动中既能愉快的玩，又能达到锻炼的目的，我们既规定幼儿每天可以在两个不同主题的区域中锻炼，在每个区域中又鼓励幼儿自己选择不同的游戏器械进行锻炼，从周一到周五轮流交换不同的主题活动区，由于一周中每天没有重复锻炼的内容，幼儿始终能保持参与活动的兴趣，幼儿锻炼的积极性、主动性也提高了，幼儿在活动中不仅发展各项基本动作，提高身体素质，而且体验到了参与的快乐，身心愉悦，促进了身心全面健康发展。

(二)科学指导并建立常规 在活动区中，教师的指导不仅指指导幼儿的活动，还包括活动计划的制定和活动区常规的建立。1）精心制定活动计划

活动计划的制定是实现科学指导的切入点。它能增强教师指导的目的意识，规范教师的教育行为。因此，在制定计划时，我们首先依据各活动区教育功能与各年龄段幼儿的特点和实际发展水平，结合教育总目标，确立阶段性的目标和重点。其次，我们充分体现了计划和目标的渐进性和发展性，在月、周的游戏目标中逐步提高要求，有明确的目的性和切实的针对性。

a）在设置区域面积大小时，我们根据本园场地大小恰当安排，每个区域我们安排一位教师负责该区域的活动，以便较容易地实施管理和指导。

b）各区域有明显的标志和确定的活动范围，而且各区域之间保持着一定的距离，以使区域的分布更为明显，这样有利于幼儿选择区域，也有利于幼儿在换区域活动时作适当的身体调整。

c）活动环境创设与活动材料的投放因考虑幼儿的年龄、能力以及兴趣的差异，如钻爬区，摆放的障碍物有高有低，这样才能满足不同幼儿活动的需要，有助与幼儿体能不断发展。

2）建立良好的常规

建立良好的活动区常规不仅可以培养幼儿的积极性、主动性，而且还可以培养幼儿的自律行为和责任感。由于活动区打破了年龄班的界限，幼儿与幼儿之间，幼儿与活动区教师之间都不熟悉，这便给各区 组织工作带来一定的困难，我们通过研究与讨论，决定以佩带胸卡的方法来进行组织，每个班佩带一种动物胸卡，并写上姓名及身体情况。同时还制定了活动区常规，主要包括：1)每个活动区的标志。2）活动区的人数。3）玩具材料合理利用，有序摆放。4）设计活动登记表，登记幼儿参加活动情况等。在活动中教师们还帮助幼儿建立了取放玩具的常规，换区活动的常规。进区时要求幼儿向指导教师问好，出区时主动道别。指导老师看了幼儿的胸卡并作活动记录，活动结束后，各班教师统计幼儿在活动区活动的情况，并建议和提醒部分幼儿多玩几个区域活动。

（三）开展混龄区户外活动，增加合作机会

开展大带小分区混龄幼儿户外体育活动能扩大幼儿的合作面，提高幼儿交往能力，我们尝试在开展混龄幼儿体育活动的基础上，进行指定范围内的分区混龄体育活动，为幼儿创设一个主动合作的群体环境，能培养幼儿的合作交往能力及良好的心理素质。在尝试中我们发现有组织的大带小，大带中的混龄体育活动，幼儿之间的交往从一对一交往，过渡到组对组的交往，在活动中孩子们既享受到了游戏的快乐，又体验到了交往合作的乐趣。

（四）教师在活动区教学中的主要作用

区域性自由活动是放开幼儿的手脚，不是放弃教师的指导。活动前，教师应对幼儿想做什么，有可能怎样做要有心理准备。指导要放在活 动前的组织上。其次在活动中观察每个幼儿的一举一动，以便引导帮助。

1）组织幼儿做好身体的准备与放松，由于进入活动区活动时，幼儿情绪高涨，活动量较大，而且各活动区的活动内容又有较大的差异。因此在幼儿参加活动区活动之前，我们带幼儿进行一些身体的放松整理的活动，以保护他们的身体健康。

2）在区域活动中，我们要相信孩子，让幼儿成为学习的主人。如首先让幼儿熟悉场地，熟悉各种活动器材的性能，还让幼儿熟悉各区指导老师。许多幼儿怕生人，特别是小班幼儿多依赖本班的老师，在陌生教师面前变得拘谨，容易使活动受局限。我们在为幼儿提供了适宜的活动环境以后，教师就引导幼儿到活动中去，鼓励他们多玩些地方，采用换位的方法，以教师的“动”来引导幼儿的“动”，开始时教师换位的次数稍多一些，随着活动的展开，幼儿不再依赖本班教师了，换位的时间逐步延长至定位。

3）在活动中，我们将与孩子平等相待，将教师是“传授者、维持者、调解者的角色转向幼儿活动中的支持者、合作者与引导者”。在活动中仔细观察每个幼儿的一举一动，发现某个幼儿的创新动作，马上引导其他幼儿模仿，发现危险动作及时制止，对胆小能力弱的幼儿扶一把，帮一把；对运动量过度的幼儿及时提醒，使活动成为幼儿“真正的游戏”。

（五）在区域活动中培养幼儿合作能力 现在的孩子多为独生子女，他们集长辈的疼爱于一身。一般的要求都能得到满足，久而久之有的幼儿心中只有自我，毫无旁人。如玩玩具各自枪一大堆自管自玩。走楼梯时俩人拉手走得快根本不管走得慢的是否跟上，这种缺乏合作精神的行为对他们将来发展是很不利的，所以在区域活动中我们精心设计、提供机会，让幼儿尝试合作带来的乐趣。

在平衡区，我们因地制宜，利用围在草坪边上的轮胎（轮胎大半埋在地里）当做“独木桥”，供幼儿练习近平衡。轮胎踩上去有弹性，胆小的幼儿别提了，原来会走平衡木的幼儿有的也不敢走了。我们采用大帮小两人合作，一个幼儿在轮胎上走，一个幼儿当“拐杖”，两人轮流进行，他们相互支持帮助越走越快，渐渐地学会了独立走轮胎。平衡区虽小，却给幼儿带来成功的喜悦，同时培养了幼儿不怕困难，积极进取、友好合作的良好品质。

但有些活动想让几个幼儿一起活动，就是效果不太好。那么我们在区域活动中有意设计了小轿子、箩筐、滚筒等活动材料。使用这些活动材料，就要求幼儿与他人合作，幼儿为了玩到这些材料，力求去寻找伙伴，久而久之，幼儿学会了合作。

六、经验和体会

经过几年来的探索和实践，我园不仅探索出一套适合孩子身心特点的户外分区体育活动方法，而且对幼儿身体发育、心智发展也起到了很大的促进作用。首先由于区域活动内容丰富、生动活泼，富有自主性、启发性，幼儿都乐意参加。区域活动的开展，使我园晨间活动参与率达百分之九十六以上。其次在自由探索中诱发了幼儿的创造性，发展了幼儿的创造力，丰富了幼儿的知识，在体育活动中幼儿通过自己的创造和想象发展活动，独立快速和机智灵活地处理活动中发生的各种问题，使观察和注意、思维和想象力得到较大发展。第三，培养了幼儿的情感，发展了幼儿的个性。在户外分区体育活动中，幼儿学会了与同伴相互交往，学会了关心年幼的弟妹，培养了规则意识、集体观念及交往能力，促使了幼儿的社会性的发展。

总之，在提倡素质教育、个性化教育的今天，能充分让儿童自主探索、自由交往、独立学习的活动区活动形式是幼儿园教育模式发展的大趋势。我们应认真总结，不断反思，以期形成符合中国国情的教育活动模式，更好地促进儿童全面发展。

第四篇：英文论文审稿意见

This paper addresses an important and interesting problem-automatically identifying adult accounts on Sina Weibo.The authors propose two sets of behavior indicators for adult groups and accounts, and find that adult groups and accounts have different behavioral distributions with non-adult groups and accounts.Then a novel relation-based model, which considers the inter-relationships among groups, individual accounts and message sources, is applied to identify adult accounts.The experimental results show that compared with state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method can improve the performance of adult account identification on Sina Weibo.Overall, the article is well organized and its presentation is good.However, some minor issues still need to be improved:(1)The authors should summarize the main contributions of this paper in Section 1.(2)In Section 4.2, the authors mentioned that “A group will attain a value very close to on GACS if all its accounts have entirely copied their own texts, images or contact information”.However, according to Equation 8, contact information is not considered when computing GACS.(3)In Algorithm 1 on Pg.17, it seems that “t=t+1” should be added after line 6.(4)I suggest that the limitation of this work should be discussed in Section 9.(5)There are a few typos and grammar errors in this paper.

第五篇：英文论文审稿意见汇总

英文论文审稿意见汇总

以下12点无轻重主次之分。每一点内容由总结性标题和代表性审稿人意见构成。

1、目标和结果不清晰。

It is noted that your manuscript needs careful editing by someone with expertise in technical English editing paying particular attention to English grammar, spelling, and sentence structure so that the goals and results of the study are clear to the reader.2、未解释研究方法或解释不充分。

◆ In general, there is a lack of explanation of replicates and statistical me thods used in the study.◆ Furthermore, an explanation of why the authors did these various experiments should be provided.3、对于研究设计的rationale: Also, there are few explanations of the rationale for the study design.4、夸张地陈述结论/夸大成果/不严谨：

The conclusions are overstated.For example, the study did not show

if the side effects from initial copper burst can be avoid with the polymer formulation.5、对hypothesis的清晰界定：

A hypothesis needs to be presented。

6、对某个概念或工具使用的rationale/定义概念：

What was the rationale for the film/SBF volume ratio?

7、对研究问题的定义：

Try to set the problem discussed in this paper in more clear，write one section to define the problem

8、如何凸现原创性以及如何充分地写literature review:

The topic is novel but the application proposed is not so novel.9、对claim,如A＞B的证明，verification: There is no experimental comparison of the algorithm with previously known work, so it is impossible to judge whether the algorithm is an improvement on previous work.10、严谨度问题：

MNQ is easier than the primitive PNQS, how to prove that.11、格式（重视程度）：

◆ In addition, the list of references is not in our style.It is close but not completely correct.I have attached a pdf file with “Instructions for Authors” which shows examples.◆ Before submitting a revision be sure that your material is properly prepared and formatted.If you are unsure, please consult the formatting nstructions to authors that are given under the “Instructions and Forms” button in he upper right-hand corner of the screen.12、语言问题（出现最多的问题）： 有关语言的审稿人意见：

◆ It is noted that your manuscript needs careful editing by someone with expertise in technical English editing paying particular attention to English grammar, spelling, and sentence structure so that the goals and results of the study are clear to the reader.◆ The authors must have their work reviewed by a proper translation/reviewing service before submission;only then can a proper review be performed.Most sentences contain grammatical and/or spelling mistakes or are not complete sentences.◆ As presented, the writing is not acceptable for the journal.There are pro blems with sentence structure, verb tense, and clause construction.◆ The English of your manuscript must be improved before resubmission.We str ongly suggest that you obtain assistance from a colleague who is well-versed i n English or whose native language is English.◆ Please have someone competent in the English language and the subject matte r of your paper go over the paper and correct it.? ◆ the quality of English needs improving.来自编辑的鼓励：

Encouragement from reviewers: ◆ I would be very glad to re-review the paper in greater depth once it has be en edited because the subject is interesting.◆ There is continued interest in your manuscript titled “……” which you subm itted to the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research: Part BFirst line of Introduction: aromaticity is one of the most important concepts in organic chemistry, but most of organic compounds are not aromatic.-Introduction, line 4: notice that only energetic ways of evaluating aromaticity are mentioned, however geometry-based(HOMA), magnetic-based(NICS)and electronic-based(SCI, PDI)methods are also important, and this point should be pointed out.Enlarge description in point 3.4.1 by going deeper into the data in Figure 8.Review Sent Date: 18-Dec-2006

*****************************************

The Comments by the Second Reviewer

Editor: Michael A.Duncan Reviewer: 67 Manuscript Number: jp067440i Manuscript Title: Restricted Geometry Optimization, a Different Way to Estimate Stabilization

Energies for Aromatic Molecules of Various Types Corresponding Author: Yu

Recommendation: The paper is probably publishable, but should be reviewed again in revised form before it is accepted.Additional Comments: Comments on the manuscript “Restricted Geometry Optimization, a Different Way to Estimate Stabilization Energies for Aromatic Molecules of Various Types” by Zhong-Heng Yu, Peng Bao Authors propose a restricted geometry optimization technique subject to pi orbital interaction constraints as a new measure of aromaticity.The approach is interesting and has certain merits.My main objection is that the manuscript is difficult to read and understand, mainly because of poor English.A substantial revision in this respect would be beneficiary.各位：

新的恶战开始了。投往JASA的文章没有被拒，但被批得很凶。尽管如此，审稿人和编辑 还是给了我们一个修改和再被审的机会。我们应当珍惜这个机会，不急不火。我们首 先要有个修改的指导思想。大家先看看审稿意见吧。

-----邮件原件-----

Manuscript #07-04147:

Editor's Comments:

This is my personal addition to the automatically generated email displayed above.Your manuscript has now been read by three knowledgeable reviewers, each of whom has provided thoughtful and detailed comments on the paper.The main points of the reviews are self-explanatory and mostly consistent across the reviews.Your presentation needs to be reworked substantially, and the reviews give you many suggestions for doing so.Clearly, the introduction needs to be much more concise and focused on the main questions you propose to answer, and why these questions are important.The rationale for selecting this unusual condition must be clear.Your discussion should focus on how the questions have been answered and what they mean.The results section is heavily dependent on statistical analyses that did not satisfy the reviewers.The figures and tables could be improved and perhaps consolidated.The methods could be shortened.For example, I think readers would take your word that these were nonsense sentences, or perhaps you could simply cite some other work where they were used.In general, it is unusual to present the first results as late as page 17 of a manuscript.Beyond the issues of presentation, some serious questions are raised by the reviewers about the design.The most notable(but not the only problem)is that there are no conditions where young and older listeners can be compared at nearly the same performance level in the baseline condition, and that at least floor effects and potentially ceiling effects are likely to significantly influence the older/younger comparison.The older listeners are tested at only one signal-to-noise ratio, at which performance was extremely poor.This asymmetric design where data for three signal-to-masker ratios are available for the younger listeners but only one for the older listeners is not ideal, but perhaps the comparison could have been salvaged if you had guessed a little better in selecting the signal-to-masker ratio for the older listeners.That didn't work out and you didn't adjust to it.I'm sorry to say that in my opinion this problem is so serious that it precludes publication of t!he older versus younger data in JASA, as I see no way of making a valid comparison with things as they are.Further, after reading the manuscript and the reviews, it seems to me that even the subjective impression comparison is difficult to interpret because of the different sensation levels at which the older and younger groups listened(if the target was fixed at 56 dBA).The Brungart et al.and Rakerd et al.data that you cite where the masker delay was manipulated over the 0 to 64 ms range would seem to have been a nice springboard for your study in older listeners.Would it not have been cleaner to have replicated those conditions with younger subjects in your lab, and then tested older listeners to see whether the patterns of data were different? There, at least, the target stimulus condition itself is not varying and there are archival data out there for comparison.As the reviews point out, your conditions present brand new complications because the ITI changes the spatial impression of the target, may change the energetic masking of the target, and distorts the target temporally all at the same time.Although the temporal distortions did not impair performance substantially in quiet, they may well in noise.Further, the spatial impressions created by the target in quiet are likely to be very different than those when the target is at v!ery low sensation levels in masking.Please investigate the literature on the influence of sensation level and noise on the strength of the precedence effect, particularly the perception of “echoes” at the longer delays.Yuan Chuan Chiang did her dissertation on this and published the results in JASA in 1998, but the first observation that noise can influence the breaking apart of a lead-lag stimulus into two images dates back at least to Thurlow and Parks(1961).To be sure, the sounds that we want to listen to are often accompanied by reflections, and I am not questioning the general validity of your conditions.However, it is important that your experimental design allows you separate out the various contributions to your results.I think there are several options for you to consider:(1)If you think it is very important to publish all the data you have right now, you could withdraw the manuscript and attempt to publish the data in another journal.(2)You could argue that the reviewers and I are wrong about the seriousness of the floor effect with the older listeners and submit a revision that includes the same data while making a convincing case for the validity of the older/younger comparison.Although this option is open to you, I don't think this is a promising alternative.(3)You could collect more data on older listeners under more favorable conditions where performance is better.With the added data this could either be a new manuscript, or, if such data were collected and the paper rewritten in a reasonable amount of time, it could be considered a revision of the current manuscript.The revision would be sent back to the reviewers.Of course, I cannot promise in advance that a manuscript even with these new data would be judged favorably by the reviewers.(4)You could drop the older/younger comparison from the manuscript and submit a much shorter version that includes only the younger data and focuses on the noise masker/speech masker distinction, perhaps analyzing your data to draw inferences about release from energetic versus informational masking from the data.Here too, it will be important to provide a clear rationale for what your specific question is about release from masking, why your conditions were chosen, and what new insights your data offer.I still worry about how spatial effects and the effects of temporal distortions are to be distinguished.(5)You could simply withdraw the manuscript and consider a more straightforward design for asking the questions you want to ask with older listeners.Thank your for submitting your manuscript to JASA.I hope the alternatives described will help guide you on how you should proceed from here.Whatever you decide to do, please consider the reviewers' comments very carefully as they have gone out of their way to provide you with suggestions on improving the presentation.Sincerely yours，Richard L.Freyman

Reviewer Comments: Reviewer #1 Evaluations:

Reviewer #1(Good Scientific Quality):

No.See attached

Reviewer #1(Appropriate Journal):

Yes

Reviewer #1(Satisfactory English/References):

No.Reviewer #1(Tables/Figures Adequate):

No.Reviewer #1(Concise):

No.Reviewer #1(Appropriate Title and Abstract):

No, because the term “interval-target interval” in the title required further explanation.MS#: 07-04147

Huang et al.“Effect of changing the inter-target interval on informational masking and energetic masking of speech in young adults and older adults.” This paper investigates the benefits of release from masking in younger and older listeners, as a function of inter-target interval(ITI)in two masker conditions(speech masking and noise masker).The same target speech was presented from two different locations simultaneously in two different maskers, one from each location(L or R).Results show that release from informational masking is evident in both younger and older listeners when the ITI was reduced from 64 ms to 0 ms.General comments:

1.Introduction needs to be rewritten:

• The general impression is that the introduction section is unnecessarily lengthy.There is too much unnecessary information, while some important terms and information are left unexplained.• The organization is poor and concepts are disjointed, jumping from place to place.For example, the authors spent 1.5 pages on reverberation and the difference between older and younger adults, than spent a full-page to talk about masking, and then came back to reverberation.• In addition, the authors did not clearly present the purpose of the study and the core of the issues under investigation.The authors mentioned that “the present study investigated whether changing the ITI over the whole precedence-operation range...can induce a release of target speech from speech masking or noise masking.” However, they did not explain how and why manipulating ITI can address their questions, questions that were not clearly stated anywhere in the paper.No hypothesis was provided in the paper and no explanation was given regarding how the experimental conditions or contrast of results in different conditions can answer the questions under investigation.2.Report of results and statistical analyses needs to be accurate and precise:

• Authors failed to provide results of statistical analyses in many occasions.• At the beginning of the result section for both the younger and older groups, the authors should clearly present the number of factors included in the analysis and which one was a between-subject factor and which ones were within-subject factors.Main effects and interaction(3-way and 2-way)should also be reported clearly.• Bonferroni correction was mentioned in the post-hoc analyses;however, no pvalue was reported.• The authors should not use the term “marginally significant”.It is either

“significant” or “nonsignificant”.I don't see p=0.084 is “marginally significant.”

• When you say percent release, do you mean percentage point difference between

the 64 ms ITI and other ITI values? For example, in the statement “...the release

amount was 31.9% under the speech-masking condition,...”, do you mean “31.9 percentage points”?

3.Baseline condition is questionable:

• The authors failed to provide clear explanation of the results.For example, the authors finally provided the definition of release from masking(on p.19)as

“...the release of speech from masking at each ITI is defined as the percent difference between the speech-identification at the ITI and the speech identification at the ITI of 64 ms(the longest ITI in this study).”

• It took me a while to understand what this means, and finally came up with the interpretation(if my interpretation is correct)of the data for the authors.It seems that when ITI was at 0 ms, the perceived spatial location is between the two maskers(spatial separation).But when the ITI was 32 and/or 64 ms, listeners heard two images(one from each side)and there was no spatial separation between the target speech and the masker on either side.Therefore, according to the authors, the release from masking is the performance difference between the ITI conditions when listeners heard only one image in a location different from the maskers', and the ITI conditions where two images from the masker locations were heard.However, I have a problem with the baseline condition(64 ms ITI in which two images were perceived).If the listeners could not fuse the image, did they hear a delay(echo)between the two targets? If so, the poor performance in the 64 ms condition can be partially due to the confusion/disruption induced by the echo in noise conditions in addition to the lack of spatial separation between the target and the masker.4.Subject recruitment criteria were unclear:

• The authors recruited both young and older adults in the study and claimed that both groups had “clinically normal hearing.” However, reading the fine details of their hearing thresholds(< 45 dB HL between 125 and 4k Hz), it is hard to accept that the hearing thresholds are within normal limits in the older group.There is at least a mild hearing loss below 4k Hz and mild-to-moderate hearing loss above 4k Hz(see Fig.1)in these subjects.The authors should explain the differences in the results in relation to the threshold differences between the two groups.• The threshold data provided in Fig.1 is average data.It is necessary to provide individual threshold data(at least for the older group)in a table format.5.Language problem:

• I understand that English is not the authors' native language.It is recommended that the authors seek assistance in proof-reading the manuscript before submission.6.Tables and Figures:

• Table 1 and 2 are not necessary since the information is presented in Fig.7

• The authors should provide legends in the figures.• The authors should provide error bars in the graphs in Fig 1.• It is hard to see the short ITI data in Fig.2

• The authors should consider changing the scale on the y-axis in Fig.4 to provide better visualization of the data.• Fig.6 should be deleted.Results could be clearly described in the text.Specific comments(this is by no means a complete list):

p.3 first par: The quote from Knudsen(1929)is not necessary.p.4 first & second par.The authors provided an exhaustive list of references in various place.I recommend they only cite the ones that are most relevant and representative.p.4 last sentence.“A listener subject to informational masking a target speech feels it difficult to segregate audible components of the target speech from those of masking speech.” This sentence is incomprehensible, please rewrite.p.5 first line, first par.“Masking(particularly information masking)of target speech can be reduced if the listener can use certain cues(perceived spatial location, acoustical features, lexical information, etc)to facilitate his/her selective attention to the target

speech.” References are needed for each cue listed in this sentence.p.5 line 5.“Age-related deficits...inhibition of goal-irrelevant information..., therefore may cause more speech-recognition difficulties” This sentence is coming out of the blue without further explanation.p.8-10.Please explain the terms “inter-loudspeaker interval”, “inter-masker interval”, “inter-target interval” before using them.p.11 line 11 “Moreover, if the recognition of target speech under either the speech masking condition or noise masking condition is significantly influenced by the ITI in younger adults, the present study further investigated whether there is an age-related deficit in the releasing effect of changing the ITI.” This sentence is incomprehensible.p.11 line 2 “The 36 young university students all had normal and balanced....” Change “balance” to “symmetrical.”

p.12 line 8 “Direct English translations of the sentences are similar but not identical to the English nonsense sentences that were developed by Helfer(1997)and also used in studies by Freyman et al.(1999, 2001, 2004)and Li et al.(2004).” I thought the sentences were created by the authors.So, are they a direct translation from the English version or created by the authors?

p.13 last par “For the two-source target presentation,....” This came out of the blue.The experimental conditions should be described clearly in a separate section.Schematic representation of the conditions could be included.p.15 line 8 “During a session, the target-speech sounds were presented at a level such that each loudspeaker, playing alone, would produce a sound pressure of 56 dBA.” Is this the rms level of speech? The level at 56 dBA seems a little low to me.It may sound very soft for the older listeners given that they have mild to moderate hearing loss.Can you explain why you chose such a low presentation level?

p.15 last line “There were 36((17+1)x2)testing condition for younger participants, and there were 32((15+1)x2)testing conditions for older participants.” The number of conditions for each group is not apparent to me.Could you explain further in the manuscript?

p.16 line 9 “...participated in additional speech-recognition experiments under the condition without masker presentation.” Where did the target speech come from? Front? Right? Or left? p.17-27.See comments on reporting results and statistical analysis under “General comments” point #2.p.23 line 12-13 “A 2(masker type)by 15(ITI)within-subject ANOVA confirms that the interaction between masker type and ITI was significant...” Since the interaction is significant, the authors should not simply interpret the main effects.p.29 line 9 Explain “self-masking” effect.Would the author expect a “self-masking” effect in noise?

p.30 last par first line “Specifically, when the SNR was-4 dB, changing the ITI(absolute value)from 64 to 0 ms led to only a small improvement in target-speech intelligibility, and the improvement was similar between the speech masking condition and the noise masking condition.” The amount of release from masking in the speech masker condition at-4 dB SNR may be limited by the ceiling effect.p.31 line 5 “In older participants, the reduction of the ITI also improved speech recognition under both the speech masking condition and the noise masking condition...”

It is hard to tell if there is a significant difference among the ITI conditions with the noise masker due to the floor effect.p.31 line 7 from bottom.“The results suggest a faster decay of temporal storage of the fine details of speech sound in older adults than in younger adults.Thus at long it is(16 ms or 32 ms), cues induced by the integration of leading and lagging target signals were weaker and/or not be well used in older participants.” First, the author should take into account the hearing loss in the older group.Second, this conclusion seems somewhat

contradictory to what the authors reported regarding the perceived image(s)of the target signal under various ITI conditions.All except for one younger subject perceived two

separate images at 32 ms ITI, but most of the older subjects still perceived the target as one image.p.32 2nd par.The discussion on the effect of inter-sound delay on ear channel acoustics came out of nowhere.Reviewer #2 Evaluations:

Reviewer #2(Good Scientific Quality):

Generally yessee general remarks.The referencing is occasionally excessive, e.g.the 17 references provided to back up the existence of informational masking on page 4, lines 13-17, or p28 lines 15-16.Some choice examples would generally suffice instead of these long lists of citations(see JASA guidelines).The English is satisfactory, with lots of minor comments(see 'detailed comments' below)

Reviewer #2(Tables/Figures Adequate):

The figures would benefit from being redrawn using appropriate graph-plotting software.In their current form, they are quite pixelated.The figures would benefit from a legend, when there are several symbols used on the same graphs.Figure 2 and Figure 3's x-axes should be suitably non-linear, because the points plotted for ITIs between-10 and 10 ms are illegible.Figure 3 is perhaps largely repeats information that is apparent in Figure 2.Also, the top panel is perhaps misleading, as the difference between the two conditions could be explained to some degree by a ceiling effect.The use of symmetry in Figure 3 should be applied to Figure 2, since we had no reason to expect left-right effects.Tables 1 and 2 should be omitted, since all their information is provided in a Figure.Reviewer #2(Concise):

There seem to be a large number of ANOVAs described in great detail.Perhaps these could be reduced to more essential statistics, or even omitted when the differences are clear from the figures(see 'general remarks' below).Reviewer #2(Appropriate Title and Abstract):

In the title, the term 'inter-target interval' could refer to many things, and it is not immediately obvious from the title that the paper has anything to do with the precedence effect.Reviewer #2(Remarks):

The authors have presented uncorrelated speech or noise maskers from two speakers, and presented the target speech from the same two speakers non-simultaneously, varying the time-interval(the inter-target interval, or ITI)between the two presentations.(1)Young listeners' speech-recognition: Novel differences were mentioned between the design of your experiment and seemingly similar experiments(Rakerd et al.2006;Brungart et al.2005).The discussion section would benefit from a comparison of the results from these experiments.There should be some mention of the general effect of ITI on speech-recognition, and some discussion about its cause and/or implications.(2)Age-related differences in speech-recognition: I was not entirely convinced that the differences could not be adequately explained by a combination of elderly listeners' increased susceptibility to energetic masking, elderly listeners' reduced ability to listen in the dips, and floor/ceiling effects.These simple explanations should receive more emphasis.Once they have been ruled out, more emphasis should be given to the apparent connection between the subjective results and the speech-recognition results(around 32 ms ITI).There should be more discussion about the meaning and importance of this interesting connection, and its implications for elderly listeners, perhaps mentioning auditory scene analysis.It's unfortunate that the elderly listeners were only tested for SNRs at which they had such poor speech recognition.(3)Age-related differences in subjective perception: Elderly listeners had reduced echo-thresholds for speech compared to young listeners.This seems to be a novel result.If this section is to be included, further discussion of relevant literature should be included, and further description of the method used to get these subjective responses.Perhaps this aspect could be published separately as a letter.Age-related differences were described as 'temporal decline'.If this term is to be used, it should perhaps be defined more carefully.Also, does it refer to the age-related differences in dip-listening, age-related differences in subjective perception, the interaction of subjective perception and speech-recognition, or some combination of these? If it is some combination, there should be further argument that the phenomena are related, perhaps incorporating other temporal-decline results from the literature.Overall, there is too much statistics and not enough interpretation of what the results mean.A major re-write is required, focusing on the important results in the Results section, and interpreting them in the Discussion section.-----------------MINOR COMMENTS

Pages 3-4

The second paragraph has somewhat flawed logic(the last sentence does not logically follow from the preceding sentences)and the conclusion isn't particularly relevant to the rest of the paper.It could be omitted.Page 11, lines 14-15: You describe the elderly listeners' audiograms as 'clinically normal'(also in the abstract)yet above, you suggest that some of them have 45 dB HL hearing losses for some pure tones.You might want to specify the definition of normal-hearing that you are using.I would agree with you(especially given their mean audiogram in Figure 1)that they are in the early stages of presbycusis, rather than normal-hearing.Describing them as simply 'normal-hearing' is perhaps misleading.Some indication of the range of the audiograms would be useful.Page 12, line 11.It might be helpful to include an example sentence and its translation, to save the reader referring back to the cited papers.Page 13, lines 7-14.-log(1/f)is the same as log(f);and the sum of log(f)is equal to log(the product of f).Thus you have balanced the product of the word frequencies.This seems an unusual measure: one nonsense word of frequency = 0 would not make the whole list unintelligible.Perhaps there are more meaningful comparisons of the distribution of word frequencies within a list, or perhaps that would be too much detail.It would suffice to say that the words were distributed pseudorandomly.Page 13, lines 20-21.Why was the 0.5-ms ITI not used for elderly listeners?

Page 14.A short summary of the conditions would be useful, for ease of reference.Page 15, lines 1-5: When the sentences were mixed, were their onsets simultaneous or randomised? Also, if there was no processing other than addition(e.g.phase-randomisation)would it not be better to refer to the masker as speech babble throughout, rather than noise?

Page 16, line 13: Perhaps it would be worth mentioning that participants were(say)given two options(broad or compact);or, if the participants were free to describe the stimulus in any terms, some description of the experimenter's process of interpretation should be mentioned.Pages 17-27: There are a large number of interactions mentioned.Not all of them have any influence on the discussion or conclusions.In fact, in many instances, there are no post hoc analyses to find the source of the interaction, nor descriptions of the effects.Not all interactions are interesting.Some may disappear under appropriate transformations;we wouldn't always expect linear effects with percent-correct recognition.However, some of the interactions you describe seem interesting.Comparing the middle-left, middle-right and bottom-left panels of Figure 2, or the two panels of Figure 4, leave me in no doubt that you have genuinely observed more release from speech maskers than noise maskers.More emphasis should be placed on describing these interesting interactions, and less emphasis should be placed on the raw statistics.Also the results section should be generally shortened, omitting statistics when the results are obvious from the figures.Example candidates for omission are:

-p17 last lineit didn't decrease at all for the older participants;also 'faster' is perhaps not the appropriate word in this context.Page 28, paragraph 1: The raised thresholds observed for elderly listeners is not a novel result, and perhaps the previous research showing this should be referenced.Page 28, line 22: 'Wingfield' rather than 'Wingfiled'.Page 29, line 19: 'fuses with' not 'fuse withs' Page 30, line 2: 'and' rather than 'and and' Page 30, line 6: 'maskers' not 'makers'

Page 30, line 5: '...fused;they...' or '...fused, but they...' rather than '...fused, they...'.The following point from 'co-variations' could perhaps be made more clearly.Page 30, line 16: 'sufficiently' rather than 'sufficient' Page 30, line 16: 'ITI-induced' rather than 'ITI-induce'.Page 32, line 16: '...manipulations, as long as they help...' Page 33, line 1: 'loudspeakers' rather than 'loudspeaker'.Page 33, line 3: 'one or more' rather than 'one or some'

Page 33, lines 9-10: 'several papers have failed to find any age-related effects...' rather than 'there are no age-related effects on the precedence effect'.Page 33, line 13: 'ITI-induced' rather than 'ITI0induced'.Page 34, line 1: 'became 8 ms or short' should be 'was 8 ms or shorter'.Page 34, line 5: 'masker' not 'maker'

Page 34, line 15: which condition is the 'non-reverberant condition'? Keep the terminology consistent to the rest of the document.(The same applies to the rest of the summary)

Page 37: Appendix 1 should be omitted, unless the spectral differences are described and interpreted.Page 37, line 8: 'sound-progressed software'? Page 37, line 10: 'spectral' rather than 'spectrum' Page 38: Appendix 2 could be omitted

Reviewer #3 Evaluations:

Reviewer #3(Good Scientific Quality):

The paper is vague and needs reworking to make clear the goals and hypotheses driving the work and the interpretation of the results.Reviewer #3(Appropriate Journal):

Yes.Reviewer #3(Satisfactory English/References):

The English is alright, but there are many typos and grammatical errors.Reviewer #3(Tables/Figures Adequate):

Yes.Reviewer #3(Concise):

No.The introduction is long and unfocused.Reviewer #3(Appropriate Title and Abstract):

The results do not tease apart informational vs.energetic masking contributions.In meaning of “inter-target interval” is not descriptive enough to be meaningful until after reading the methods.Reviewer #3(Remarks):

This paper presents results of an experiment conducted in young and older listeners listening to target speech embedded in competing signals.The experiment uses a complex set-up, including two competing maskers from different(symmetrically positioned)locations and a target that is played from both speakers while varying the timing of the target signals from the two speakers.The authors spend a *lot* of time trying to relate this set up to the precedence effect and difficulties of understanding speech in a room, fusion of a leading and a lagging sound, and temporal processing.The introduction is, indeed, long and hard to follow.It is not clear where the argument is going, or how the reviewed material influenced the design of the current experiments, let alone what the current experiment is trying to test.While all of the issues raised in the introduction undoubtedly contribute to the results obtained in the experiment, none of these ideas is explored fully enough to understand how or why they may be important in the current setup.What is the goal of the experiment? Why use this complex setup? What are the hypotheses for what will happen as a function of inter-target delay? For aging listeners? None of this is clear in the current presentation.Off the top of my head, here is a list of examples of the kinds of things that are very troubling in the manuscript:

There are never any clearly stated hypotheses for what should happen in the different settings, or why.There is no discussion or interpretation of the results that lends insight into what processes are contributing to the observed effects.The influences of energetic masking are not discussed and the results confound release from energetic and informational masking.While the overall long-term spectral average of the speech is shown to change only by a limited amount with inter-target delay, there is no discussion of what happens in the modulation domain(which, arguably, is the most relevant domain for speech understanding).There is no discussion of how envelope cues are affected, or what this could do to INTELLIGIBILITY as well as SEGREGATION of the sources.The single-source control(dashed line in the main figures)is not an adequate control for energetic or informational masking in the two-masker conditions, and thus is essentially useless.The older listeners perform worse overall than any of the younger listeners, and thus, there is no point in the direct comparisons that are made between younger and older listeners.Nothing can really be concluded about why the older listeners do poorly, since they are worse than any of the control groups.The fact that the change in performance with inter-target delay is smaller for the older listners is meaningless, since this may be a floor effect.Similarly, the fact that changes in performance with inter-target delay are smaller in the younger listener group with the best signal-to-noise ratio than for the other groups is likely due to ceiling effects--there is no reason to expect equal changes at all performance levels(psychometric functions are sigmoidal, in general, not linear).This same problem makes the target-only control experiment particularly pointless.Given that all of the results are taken at different points on the psychometric functions and that the psychometric functions are nonlinear, the ANOVA analyses presented seem pointless to this reviewer--they compare apples and oranes.Moreover, the statistical analyses are presented **instead of** any description of what is happening and what it might mean.I would rather have some help understanding what you expected to see and why instead of a lot of statistical analyses that don't lend any insight into what was found.Throughout the manuscript, there is no attempt to determine what is due to energetic and what is due to informational masking.The noise control condition probably *only* gives energetic masking, but the amount of energetic masking it produces is different from that of the the other speech conditions.Thus, there is no way to conclude anything about how IM and EM contribute in the speech conditions as a function of inter-target delay, or what the inter-target delay is really doing.The experiment in which listeners were asked to judge the spatial quality of the different conditions might have been important in helping to interpret what was happening, but was never developed.What is shown is actually quite confusing.The older listeners may have a slightly different pattern of spatial perception as a function of inter-target delay, but this is never fully explored.No hypotheses are given to describe how these differences are likely to impact speech understanding in the speech intelligibility task.IF the results are reliable and repeatable enough to be meaningful(which is suspect, given the small number of subjects), what do you expect to happen for older listeners for whom the sounds are MORE DIFFUSE AT ZERO DELAY than for younger listeners? Wouldn't that suggest that they should have more difficulty in understanding the target compared to young listeners at these short delays? But they are like the younger listeners at the longest delays, hearing two targets.Is that good or bad? If hearing two separate targets(at the locations of the maskers)is expected to make the task harder, why aren't the older listeners BETTER than the younger listeners at the delays of 16 and 32? There is no discussion of these points to help interpret any of this.The paper ends with conclusions that are not linked to any of the results shown.How can one assert that the “listeners perceive two spatially separated images of the target and can selectively focus their attention to only one of the images(usually the leading one)”(p.29)from the data presented? This one sentence contains so many assumptions, it is indefensible.All that was measured is intelligibility.On p.31, the authors write “The results suggest a faster decay of temporal storage of the fine details of speech sound(sic)in older adults than in younger adults.” The only thing that is shown is that the older listeners have more difficulty in general, are near the performance floor, and show less dependence on the inter-target delay.There are too many leaps to go from this to asserting that there are differences in “temporal storage of the fine details.”

There are numerous typos(names misspelled, grammar issues)throughout;however, the manuscript needs to be completely rewritten before it is in an acceptable form for JASA, so I will not comment on that here.In summary, while the results might be of interest if presented in a more accessible way, with clearer justification for the experimental design and explicit hypotheses for what should happen in the different conditions, this could be salvaged into an acceptable paper.In its current form, it is not appropriate for JASA.