Remarks for both the editor and the authors: In this section, you should make a thorough report on the various sections of the manuscript. Begin with a brief synopsis of the manuscript you wrote following your first reading. Then, in a numbered list, explain each of the concerns you discovered that require attention. Finally, suggest changes that would improve the quality of the manuscript. The official word on how to write an author's comment is rather short: "Write a long letter." Actually, academic journals expect letters to be at least three pages long (although some prefer four or five). So, you need to cover enough material to support three pages of text without repeating yourself or covering similar ground more than once. Also, remember to be polite when writing these comments! There are two types of comments that may appear on a manuscript when it is being reviewed by others for publication: external and internal. External comments come from people other than the authors, such as referees who check your work before it is submitted to a journal. Internal comments come from team members within the authors' organization; for example, a department chair might provide comments on an article they have published. Both types of comments help the authors make improvements to their manuscript. External comments are sent directly to the authors via email. They usually include suggestions for changes they can make to their manuscript before submitting it for review.