COVID-19 and the View from Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper often reads more as an outline than as a developed paper. E.g., lines 95-105, but this is widespread in the paper.

The authors often string together a series of quotes rather than provide their own analysis of the material. Quotes should support the author's statements rather than replace them. E.g. lines 227-242. Particularly striking is the long string of quotes in lines 374-400. 

Lines 142-150 are poorly placed in a section on Africa. They would seem to fit better following line 117.

Often it is difficult to determine what is a quote and what are the authors own words, due to inconsistent use of quotation marks. Lines 227-242 also illustrate this. (The authors also fluctuate between the use of single and double quotes and should consult a style sheet for their proper usage.)

Stylistically the paper reads more like an undergraduate paper rather than a scholarly one. Flaws which this reviewer has often found in student papers are repeated here:
1.) frequent use of the 2nd person pronoun ("you"), which should generally be avoided in scholarly papers. E.g., lines 47, 110. 247, 248 et al.
2.) similar use of the 1sst person pronoun (in this case "we")
3.) Use of the future tense (lines 52 and 56). Replace with present tense.

The sentence beginning on line 48 is grammatically flawed. The pronoun "it" has no clear antecedent.  And how can religious leaders lead the world's highest levels? This sentence needs to be reworked. 

Line 69: "advocating" is a dangling participle and should be replaced by "advocacy"

The word "widespread" is used twice in line 3. Such repetition is a sign of poor writing.

The authors overuse the phrase "inter alia". In the abstract, line 2, it is used awkwardly. Better usage at line 43.  At line 197 it is used to refer to four countries, but no direct citations are provided. Three quotes provided in lines 201-209 are probably intended as citations, but they contain no references countries and there are three quotes for four countries.

Lines 112ff. This reference to Brazil is tacked onto a paragraph dealing with the USA. Brazil needs its own paragraph and more development. 

Linee 154: The capitalization of ARE is not scholarly. 

Avoid use of contractions in a scholarly paper. E.g., "don't" in line 407.

The specific places mentioned here are intended only as examples. The entire paper really needs to be reworked into a more professional, scholarly piece. 

Author Response

All the line numbers quoted in this pdf are wrong, so I had to look closely to see where the reviewer was referring to, but to respond I'll quote the line numbers given in the pdf. "Adjusted" means altered per referees request.

a) 142-150 Good point, moved as suggested.
b) Quotes matters dealt with
c) Style is fine, criticism is redundant
d) L48 - adjusted
e) L69 - nonsense, usage is correct, "advocacy" makes no sense.
f) Widespread - adjusted
g) Inter Alia - adjusted
h) 112 - Brazil given its own paragraph
i)  L154 - adjusted
j) L407 - adjusted

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Very nice, appropriate and accurate precise of the article, thank you. I don't agree with the idea of altering the title - it's supposed to be enigmatic, to separate it from the usual dry clinical titles. If it's not acceptable then just remove it. "Religion and COVID 19 - the view from Africa" will do. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

While the author(s?) have certainly made significant stylistic improvement to this paper, it is remains the opinion of this reader that a lot more work needs to be done. The list below reflects only a read of the first 70 odd lines of the paper and is provided as an illustration of the kind of work which still needs to be done to make this paper readable in a professional context.

 

Line 3 “widespread” repeated twice!

Line 9 “in the world” better placed after “mortality-rate” in line 8 (Same issue in lines 52-53)

Line 9 grammatically “making” agrees with “world”. The word it is actually intended to modify is unclear.

Line 10 Delete “and” and start a new sentence

Line 13 To what does “it” refer?

Line 26 The use of “elders” is odd. Do the authors mean “church officials”?

Line 37 Does the word “this” refer to “refusal” or “vaccine hesitancy? Unclear

Line 42 Reference to the government as “who” is odd. Better English would be “which”

Line 42 “Government” is capitalized here but is not in line 69. Be consistent.

Line 52 What “figure” is referred to? None is mentioned.

Line 63 Use of contraction not appropriate in formal writing.

Lines 71-76 This is a very awkward and unwieldly run-on sentence which needs careful working. This reader earlier suggested changing "advocating" to "advocacy" as a starting point but probably should have been more specific:. Here ere is how "advocacy" works better than "advocating": “despite Pope Francis’s advocacy…..”. This phrase is better placed after “services in line 72. Then begin a new sentence with “saying” , which as written, agrees grammatically with “services” while the author(s?) probably want readers to understand this participle with the leader of the church in Britain.

Line 72 “church” should be capitalized after “Roman Catholic”

Author Response

Line 3: "widespread" now only appears once Line 9: "in the world" didn't belong as a phrase and has now been removed Line 9: grammar in this regard has been addressed Line 10: "and" has been retained, but now in a way in which things read grammatically correctly Line 13: "It" refers to the article. This is now clear from the editing. Line 26 (which is now line 21): We looked at "elders" and its usage here. We believe in the context of the African context this word works, although we rewrote to clarify a bit. This did not read awkwardly to us. Line 37 (now line 36): "This" has now been modified to "this phenomenon," and we believe the referent is now clear in context. Line 42 (now line 41): we agree about grammar with regard to reference of "government." This is now edited to read grammatically correctly, with the relative clause removed. Also, "government" now appears everywhere in lower case for consistency. Line 52 (now line 55): it is now clear that "figure" refers to the "highest vaccine-treatable mortality rates for children under the age of 5 suffering from infectious diseases in the world" Line 63: the contraction has been removed in the editing Lines 71-76: We completely agree that this read terribly. We edited and broke up the sentences. We did the same thing on many, many occasions throughout the text. Line 72 (now line 73): We agree.