answering revisions

Write the reply the reviewer can tick.

A revision reply has one job: to let whoever reads it confirm, note by note, that every condition has been met — without opening a search. That is a matter of form, not of persuasion. Quote the note, state what is now true, name the paper and the answer where it now sits, and send the whole folder back rather than the pieces that changed.

Olivia Tremblay, MSN, RN · filed 2026-08-23

Number every note. Under each, write what the document now says, then name where it says it — paper, version and the matching answer on the form. Sweep every other paper carrying that fact. Refile the complete folder, superseded copies removed.

Who reads the reply, and what are they holding?

Fewer people than you imagine, and more than you plan for. Where the file went out by an expedited route, the reader is the Chair or an experienced member the Chair designated, holding the letter and your folder. Where it went to the convened board, Herzing's bylaws describe a room: a quorum of members plus one, at least one of them a non-scientist, acting by majority, with a roll-call recorded in the minutes when a vote is not unanimous. Some of those people did not write the note you are answering.

That is the whole reason the reply is written as a standing document rather than a conversation. “As discussed” and “per your comment” assume a memory in the room. Quoting the note assumes nothing. It also removes the small friction of a reader wondering whether you understood which sentence they meant — a friction that, repeated eight times, is how a file earns a second look it did not need.

Two more facts about the reading shape the reply. The board can only approve once it is able to make a fixed set of findings: that risk has been held down and is proportionate to what the work may yield; that people were chosen fairly; that permission will be obtained and recorded unless the board itself lifts that requirement; that what is collected is watched where watching matters; that privacy and confidentiality have real provisions under them; and that anyone open to pressure carries extra cover (45 CFR 46.111). And an expedited reviewer holds every authority of the board except one: under 45 CFR 46.110(b)(2) they may approve minor changes, but a project can only be turned down through the convened route. A note from a single reviewer is, structurally, an invitation to finish.

What does one answer look like on the page?

Four moves, in this order, for every numbered note. The board's sentence, verbatim. What is now true, written as a fact about the project rather than as an intention. The paper that carries it, by name and version, down to the paragraph. And the answer on the application form that now says the same thing, because the form is the document of record and a change that lives only in an attachment has not reached it.

Note 2. “The consent describes an audio recording; the methodology answer describes written notes only. Reconcile.”

Now true. Sessions are audio-recorded with permission. Anyone who prefers not to be recorded takes part with written notes instead, and the recording is transcribed and then deleted at transcription.

Where it lives. Consent form v3, paragraph headed “What taking part involves”, third sentence; interview guide v2, cover note; the Methodology answer on the application, second paragraph; the Data Security answer, first line, which now names the transcription step.

Notice what the entry does not do. It does not argue that the original wording was defensible. It does not say “clarified” — a word that describes your action rather than the participant's experience. And it does not stop at one document, because the fact it corrected had been sitting in four.

Why does one change touch four papers?

Because a folder repeats itself by design. Every fact about the project appears wherever a reader might look for it, and a reviewer's habit is to look in two places and compare. The facts that drift are always the same handful:

How many people take part, and how they were selected or approached — the application asks for the recruitment description in its own words.
What happens in the room: recorded or not, how long the encounter runs, what is asked exactly as it will be asked.
What is collected, from whom, and whether anything identifying travels with it.
Where it is kept and how it ends. Herzing's applications ask for the storage location, the security of that location or system, how long the material is retained, and the method by which old material is disposed of. Four blanks; four facts; one wording everywhere.
Who is named on the project, and whose signature the form carries — the applicant's and the project faculty's, with a programme chair's where the published form asks for it.
Whether anything costs or pays, and what participants are told about it.

Before sending, take one fact at a time and read the actual sentence in every paper that carries it. Not from memory — the sentence. This pass is dull and it is the single practice that separates a folder that ends here from one that comes back with a note about the fix. The same discipline governs the consent itself, which is covered in what a Herzing consent form has to contain.

How do you keep versions straight when the folder travels as attachments?

Herzing's published route is a completed application sent with its checklist items to the board's address, so version control is yours to impose rather than a system's to enforce. Three habits do it. Put the version and date in the file name and repeat them in the document's own footer, so a printed page still says which paper it is. Name that same stamp in the reply, so the entry and the attachment cannot drift apart. And send exactly one current copy of each paper — a superseded draft left in the envelope is not a spare, it is a contradiction with a date on it.

Where a paper cannot show tracked changes, put a short line at its head saying what moved since the previous version. The reviewer's question is always the same: what changed, and what will the participant actually see. Answer both and the comparison stops being work.

What if a note asks for something you think is wrong?

Answer it once. Say that you have considered it, give the reason the change would weaken a protection or break the design, and offer a route that meets the same concern differently — a stricter separation of identifiers, say, rather than dropping a measure. Then stop. If the note returns, make the change. The judgement belongs to the board, and a settled point argued twice costs a pass that had been about to close.

The pass before you send

Every note has a number, and every number has an entry.
Each entry opens with the board's own sentence, quoted.
Each entry records what the paper now says, rather than what you meant to do.
Each entry names a paper, a version and a paragraph — and the answer on the application that matches.
Every application answer the reply names has actually been retyped; open the form and read it.
The drift list has been walked fact by fact, sentence by sentence.
Each revised paper carries its stamp in the file name and the footer.
Superseded copies are out of the envelope.
Checklist items are current: the completion records, the questionnaires, any outside board's application and approval, the signatures the published form asks for.
Anything you changed unasked is listed apart, with its reason.
The whole folder goes in one envelope, on the board's published deadline rather than after it.

One thing the reply cannot do is start the project. Herzing's bylaws are explicit that research may not begin until written approval has been granted, and a reply in flight is not an approval. What comes after the approval letter — changes, reports, the annual look and the close — is set out in continuing review, reporting and closing.

What to do next

Draft the ledger first and the documents second; the entries will tell you which papers have to move. If you would rather not run the sweep yourself, the free application review reads the letter and the folder together and comes back with the entries drafted and the drift list already walked. How it works describes what the desk carries from there — through revisions and, where the project changes later, through amendments. The project remains in your hands, and the ruling on it remains in theirs.

Sources

Herzing University Institutional Review Board — applications, submission route and the published meeting calendar.
Herzing University IRB Application for Research Protocol Approval — checklist, data-security question, signature block.
Herzing University IRB Application for Improvement or Innovation Project Approval — checklist and signatures for doctoral improvement work.
Herzing University IRB Bylaws — quorum, majority action, roll-call minutes, expedited handling, and approval before any research begins.
Herzing University IRB Statement of Principles — the approval criteria as the board states them.
45 CFR 46.111 (govinfo) — criteria for approval.
45 CFR 46.110 (govinfo) — expedited review, minor changes, and the limit on disapproval.
45 CFR 46.109 (govinfo) — written notification of required modifications.

Form names, routes and calendars are Herzing's own and shift between editions; check each against Herzing's current IRB handbook or portal. This practice is independent and not affiliated with Herzing University.

the other tabs in this file

A returned application Changing an approved project The application checklist FAQ Contact