A Sample of Resilient Intercultural Coexistence in Ethnic Hungarian, Serbian and Bulgarian Communities in Western Romania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

Recommendations:

The state of the question should be removed from the methodology, it generates confusion and although there is a very extensive introduction, it is not very robust.

They must unequivocally explain the research objectives, now very diluted in expressions of much circumlocution.

The discussion should broaden its context of debate

From the formal point of view, the References that are currently disorganized must be organized.

Regards

Author Response

Thank you for your efforts in evaluating our article and making suggestions for improvement.

We heeded the suggestions and made the necessary changes.

We hope that the article now better meets your requirements.

1. The state of question should be removed from methodology, it generates confusion and although is a very extensive introduction, it is not very robust

As indicated, we deleted the paragraph containing the main question and the secondary questions that led to the formulation of our hypothesis. Lines 59-64 and 74-77 were deleted.

 

2. They must unequivocally explain the research objectives, not very diluted in expressions of much circumlocution

We added text at lines 40-51 consisting in a detailed presentation of our secondary objectives. Our aim is to complete the wording of the main objective and remove the ambiguity, as you indicated.

 

3. The discussion should broaden its context of debate

Following your suggestion, we have made significant changes to the Results and Discussions chapter. We have separated the presentation of research results from research-related discussions, in order to provide a clearer picture of our approach.

We broadened the scope of the discussions by adding more arguments to the ideas presented above. We have made a clearer and more detailed analysis of the implications of the phenomena covered in this chapter: regional identity, cultural identity, intercultural co-construction, the practice of cross-border relations, territorial deconstruction.

 

4. From the formal point of view the references are currently disorganised must be organised

There was some document formatting errors that we corrected.

 

               Also, we made some more corrections on English grammar and typing errors.

 

Thank you very much for your evaluation and for your suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please add a short "ethnohistorical" comment of the groups of Serbs/Hungarian/Bulgarians in Timis county (when first mentioned). I consider it necessary to shortly define how long they are living in Banat and which group (local orginis, dialect, confession) do they belong to, de ex. Banat Bulgarian, Szekler Hungarian, Banatski-Crnogorski Serbs. Otherwise the reader will not even know that there are different periods of emigration and different confessions, e.g. the Bulgarians of the Banat are Catholics.

Table 4 (Applied studies and literature about Timiș county): names a lot of sources which are not listed in the bibliography. Please discuss with the editor if they should be all listened.

References: The order is unclear: The numbers missing or they should be in alphabetical order?

It is not clear which theory and which authors you are following conncering the definition of "ethnicity", "group identity".

There are some sources which really should be quoted like, before all:

Wolf, Josef 2004: Development of Ethnic Structure in the Banat 1890-1992. Stuttgart: Borntraeger 2003

Several diacritic symbols are missing, e.g.

11: Timis -> Timiș

534: Cris, Mures -> Criș, Mureș 

443, 446 Makó -> Makó

please proove syllabization, brackets, interpunction, e.g.

dialogue , -> dialogue,

463: [Dowry Chest) -> (Dowry Chest) 

in bibliography: ; ;

Author Response

Thank you for your efforts in evaluating our article and making suggestions for improvement.

We heeded the suggestions and made the necessary changes.

We hope that the article now better meets your requirements.

1. Please add a short „ethnohistorical” comment of the groups of Serbs/Hungarian/Bulgarians in Timiș county (when first mentioned). I consider it necessary to shortly define how long they are living in banat and which group (local origins, dialect, confession) do they belong to, de ex. Banat Bulgarian, Szekler Hungarian, Banatski-Crnogorski Serbs. Otherwise the reader will not even know that there are different periods of emigrations and different confessions , e. g. the bulgarians of the banat Catholics.

 

We added a small text at lines 97-123 (as it appears in the text with track changes) about the origin of the ethnic groups that we are focused in this article. We thank you for the bibliographical sugestion.

 

2. Table 4 (Applied studies and literature about Timiș county: names a lot of soutces which are not listed in the biliography. Please discuss with the editor if they should all listed)

We corrcted some errors, and now, all the authors in the table are cited in this article, with the works published in the year to which we refer in the table. Inconsistencies have been fixed.

 

3. It is not clear which theory and which authors you are following concerning the definition of „ethnicity” , „group identity”

We added a text at lines 85-106 (as it appears in the text with track changes) in which we explain our perspective on the concept of ethnicity, ethnic group and ethnic group identiy.

 

4. There are some sources which really should be quoted like , before all:

Wolf, Josef, 2004, Development of Ethnic Structure in banat 1890-1992. Stuttgart , Bromtraeger, 2003

We searched for, and used this bibliographical source.

 

5. Several diacritic symbols are missing ..

We  solved this problem. The diacritics of some names were lost during the translation of the article, due to a regrettable material error.

 

6. The problem with missing numbers from endnotes (references):

There was a document formatting error that we corrected.

 

Also, we made some more corrections on English grammar and typing errors.

 

Thank you very much for your evaluation and for your suggestions.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

There is an important destructuring of the Introduction, which does not raise the questions and objectives of the research with systematized clarity and which deviates with questions of method and results. Phoebe focus on the background that should be the fundamental axis of this section. The Introduction needs to be redrafted.

The systematization of the method must be much clearer and more organized, without mixing aspects of the review of the state of the art, and without making generic references to the techniques.

As there are no well-defined questions and objectives, Results and Discussion (which it is recommended to segregate), emerge without criteria and in a barely understandable way. The logical sequential thread of the research process is lost.

The formal aspect of the references should be more careful (at least in the version received by this reviewer).

Regards

Author Response

We have tried to resolve all issues arising from your evaluation. Thanks for the comments and suggestions!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

The systematization of the method must be much clearer and more organized, without mixing aspects of the review of the state of the art, and without making generic references to the techniques.

 In the opinion of this reviewer, there is still an error in the development of the methodology: the literature review must support the approach to the problem and the empirical research questions, not be the response method, that would lead us to a systematic review and not to an empirical investigation

The objectives are excessive for the scope of this investigation and result in its own wording: Investigating...

The hypotheses are unsupported.

 There is significant evidence of confusion when, when speaking of method, research is cited, and a questionnaire and interview are introduced as instruments of observation. The actual empirical processes do not seem systematized and are very confused. The confusion and lack of clarity in these aspects do not facilitate the understanding of the results, and put their validity in question.

 In the Results, the contingency relationship between the research objectives and the grouping of categories in the results section is not appreciated. Thus, the logic of the investigation is lost.

 

  Regards

Author Response

We have reviewed the article, according to your comments and suggestions. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf