Dear list users, I just got back a review of my manuscript and i wanted your advice regarding one of the issues raised by the reviewer. In my study i had to pick four high SES (socioeconomic status) neighbourhoods and four low SES neighbourhoods of the 60 or so neighbourhoods in the city. To show that i didn't just "pick" the eight i wanted, i chose five socioeconomic variables from the statistical bureau's publications and according to them performed a multidimensional scaling. This resulted in a two dimensional matrix of neighbourhoods, that clearly shows the low SES neighbourhoods on the left and high SES on the right (relative to the x axis). So, naturally, i can say that the dimension of the x axis is the SES of the neighbourhood. But if this is the case, what is the second dimension? When we sent the manuscript, we only presented the matrix, without stating our interpretation of the dimensions, simply because it has no importance other than to choose neighbourhoods. However, the reviewer was not satisfied, and asked to know what the dimensions represent. He also said that i could omit the matrix and the analysis if i just give the scores of the neighbourhoods on the five SES variables. But, i don't want to omit it because it would then seem that my choosing of neighbourhoods can be deliberate and not "random". Do you have any suggestions as to how i can explain to him/her that i can't explain exactly what are the dimensions, but that i still think the analysis is approapriate? Hope you can help. Thanks, Hilit
-- Hilit Finkler PhD student Zoology department The George S. Wise Life sciences faculty Tel Aviv University Israel
