PONE-D-23-20994HOMOGENEITY AND CHANGE POINT DETECTION USING FORWARD AND BACKWARD PROCESSES: FOR BIBLE TEXTSPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Andemichael,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Roy Cerqueti, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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5. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 3 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear author, The paper has an interesting research question, but it it not publishable in its current form. The reviewers have some doubts about the effectiveness of a revision round, but I want to give you the opportunity to revise deeply the paper.  You should convince me that the methodological section and the discussion of the results have a satisfactorily high level to grant the publication in Plos One. I would say that this is a risky major revision. Please, read carefully the comments of the revievers. Thank you for submitting your paper to Plos One.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Minor points:

1- The manuscript needed to be reread since there is a considerable number of typos and incorrect grammar throughout the text. I list some of the language problems in the following:

• Abstract

Zifp-Mandelbrot --> Zipf-Mandelbrot

• Introduction

therefore,expected --> therefore, expected

Bahdur --> Bahadur

mendelbrot --> Mandelbrot

homogeniety --> homogeneity

• Theoretical Background

Hurvitz zeta function --> Hurwitz zeta function

number of word --> number of words

• Bible Classification

old testament --> Old Testament

( Job --> (Job

new Testament --> New Testament

• Application to Bible Books in 3 Languages

more then 600 words --> more than 600 words

2- Citations in the text are started from [16]. They should be sorted in ascending order: [1], [2], [3], … .

3- Text should be justified.

4- What is [?] in lines 11 and 12 of page 2/8.

5- All formulas should be labeled by numbers.

6- All parameters and variables in formulas have to be introduced in the text.

7- P.5/8, L.84 & L.85: Short paragraphs and unintelligible sentences.

8- It will be illustrative if author give an example for calculation of parameters in table 3.

9- Fig.4 and Fig.5 should be explained clearly in the text. Moreover, red and blue colors have to be indicated in fig.4 and fig.5.

10- All references have to be written in the same style. Please take a look at references 8, 9, 11, …. In some references authors name is written completely and in some others just the first letter of their name written.

Major concern:

1- P.4/8, L.47: Author has to explain Table (and the next tables) completely. Its all parameters and values should be clarified in detail.

2- Heat maps are not properly described. Author has to clearly explain what they refer to.

3- All parameters in tables have to be determined clearly in the captions.

4- P.6/8, L.96: Table does not have caption! What is the third column in this table?

5- Please explain why “longer texts consistently have lower error rates”.

6- Forward and backward processes should be described in detail.

Reviewer #2: The paper "Homogeneity and change point detection using forward and backward processes: for Bible texts" analyses the text of the Bible written in three different languages (Tigrigna, Amharic, and English) and shows how they meet the requirements of texts written in human language, how they are very heterogeneous within them and tests possible change points from one text model to another.

The premises and the initial idea of the paper are interesting, but the part of the empirical analysis is meagre and needs to be completely argued. The methodology section is also a simple list of formulas left somewhat to itself and is quite unrelated from the empirical analysis. Unfortunately on reading, the paper appears sloppy in all its parts.

Wishing to reward the initial idea and analytical effort that is not accompanied by adequate interpretation or commentary, I suggest that the paper be heavily revised in all its parts. Only in this case the paper can be considered for publication.

I also suggest a final revision of the English.

Some minor but equally important points:

1) The title should be made more intriguing

2) The Theoretical Background section should actually be called Methodology

3) Beware of copy and paste. One sentence is repeated twice (pp 6 and 7)

4) Beware of figures and their order. Figures 7 and 8 are both labelled as Figure 7, also the figures should be ordered from first to last.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: report020502.pdf

PONE-D-23-20994R1Application of elementary probability models for text homogeneity and segmentation: a case study of BiblePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Andemichael,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please see comments from the journal office below.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 26 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Roy Cerqueti, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Note from Journal Staff: In order to meet PLOS ONE publication criteria please ensure the manuscript has been copyedited, and please address the following:

1) Please include supporting citations for Lines 171 - 176;

2) typo on line 244;

3) grammatical error in line 247. 

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

********** 

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Application of elementary probability models for text homogeneity and segmentation: a case study of Bible

PONE-D-23-20994R2

Dear Dr. Andemichael,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Roy Cerqueti, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: