Thank you for your detailed responses to the referee comments. I agree with all your proposed revisions. If you make them as described, I do not see a reason to send the manuscript back to referees for further review. I look forward to seeing the revised manuscript!

Editor’s Notes on Fracking bad language
Geoscience Communication
Beth Bartel
March 10, 2021

Dear Jennifer, Clare, and Zoe,

Thank you for your revised manuscript, “Fracking bad language: Hydraulic fracturing and earthquake risks,” and the work you put into addressing reviewer comments as relevant.

I have several editorial requests to clarify the writing in such a way that I think will serve you and your readers. General feedback is below, followed by more specific requests for the abstract to ensure readers will understand the relevance of your work. Specific feedback for the rest of the manuscript is given through annotations in the corresponding pdf. Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions.

Thank you!


Beth


General comments:
Add commas after et al. in citations throughout the paper when followed by the year.
Reduce the use of parenthetical and dashed phrases within sentences. I’ve highlighted cases where these are distracting and can be reworded or the () or -- substituted with commas.
In lists, use and or or after the last comma
Take out unnecessary words or phrases to shorten sentences and improve readability
Eliminate or replace ambiguous language
Make and back up all points clearly in the text so that the tables serve as a supplement but are not required to understand your arguments while reading the body of the paper
Clarify when you are talking about only respondents from the conferences vs. the outreach events
Cf. refers to ‘compare to’--I think what you mean here is ‘see for example’; please change all instances to ‘see for example’ or ‘e.g.,’.
Use punctuation consistently in table, i.e., add periods to the end of all sentences.

Highlighting key:
Green highlights indicate grammar/punctuation/spelling/redundancy issues. I am in the U.S.; it is possible that I have highlighted something that is standar for UK English, in which case, please ignore.
Salmon highlights indicate a need for rewording or changes in punctuation due to ambiguity, confusing language, unnecessary language, or unnecessary parentheses or dashes.
Yellow highlights indicate clarification needed.


Specific comments on the abstract:
11 “risk of seismicity” itself is ambiguous. Does this mean potential for damage or casualties? Or is it, like the other language you address in the article, left ambiguous by stakeholders and researchers?
13 Add in what year “halted shale gas operations and triggered moratoria.” If more than one year and specificity is difficult, change “halted” to “has halted”.
13-16 Please clarify: is the disconnect between the level of risk vs. concern about that risk, or between levels of risk perceived by publics vs. expert groups? Do you mean to have the word “concern” in this sentence? This could read that there is a disconnect between the level of concern *perceived* by publics and reported (about whom?) by expert groups. This sentence would benefit from removing unnecessary words, using more precise language if possible, and potentially breaking it up into two or more sentences.
17-18 Please be more specific. Conclusions about what? Whether there is a risk of seismicity due to hydraulic fracturing?
22 Add colon : after years
23-26 This is possibly the most important finding of your research, so please state it more explicitly, e.g., that what appeared to be polarization in their views was actually the result of different interpretations of the language used. “By examining the rationale provided for their answers we find that what appeared to be polarisation of views amongst experts was actually the result of different interpretations of the language used to describe seismicity.” Responses are confounded by ambiguity of language around earthquake risk, magnitude, and scale.

Thank for your careful revisions. This publication is a helpful contribution to the fields of communication and of resource development, and useful for both researchers and practitioners.

So pleased to see this all ready for publication - it has taken a while but I think it will have quite an impact. Thanks particularly for responding so diligently to the construtive reviews and I hope you feel that these improved the paper - it certainly looks like it from my side. Well done all!