brycewang-stanford HPCA Author Response
Use this during HPCA's single combined rebuttal/revision window — the one period in which you respond to reviews and revise the paper together. The goal is not to win an argument; it is to arm a champion at the program-committee meeting and to make the revised paper reflect what you promise.
Triage objections by what the window can fix
Sort every review comment before writing a word:
- Deciding objection — the methodology or novelty concern the champion must overcome. Spend most of the window here.
- Fixable-and-worth-it — a missing baseline, a sensitivity study, an unclear mechanism detail the window has time to address.
- Clarification — a misreading you can correct in a sentence and reflect in the revision.
- Out of scope — a request no short window can satisfy; acknowledge honestly and scope what you can show.
| Objection type | Response move | Revision move |
|---|---|---|
| Deciding (methodology/novelty) | Direct evidence or a tight argument | Change the paper to match |
| Missing baseline / sweep | A small new experiment | Add the result, mark it |
| Mechanism unclear | One-paragraph clarification | Tighten the description |
| Misreading | Point to the text | Rephrase the ambiguous line |
| Out of scope | Acknowledge; state what is feasible | Note the limitation |
Run few, decisive new experiments
The window is short. Run a small number of new experiments that each answer a
specific objection, not a scattershot of everything a reviewer mentioned. One
well-chosen sweep that closes the deciding objection is worth more than five that
answer minor points. Pull from the staging shelf you prepared before the window
opened (see hpca-supplementary).
Write for the room and its champion
The rebuttal is read at the PC meeting, where a champion argues for the paper against the strongest objection. Write so the champion can quote you:
- Lead each response with the answer, then the evidence — not a wind-up.
- Make the deciding objection's answer unmissable and self-contained.
- Be concrete: "we added the tuned baseline; it changes the gap from X to Y" beats "we believe our baseline is fair."
- Stay civil and specific; a defensive or vague rebuttal loses the champion.
Revise diff-minimally so response and revision agree
Because reviewers see both your response and the revised paper, keep the revision a minimal, faithful diff: change exactly what you promised, and no more. A response that claims a fix the revision does not contain — or a revision that quietly rewrites beyond the promises — undercuts trust. Track each promise to a specific edit.
Window pass
1. Triage every comment (deciding / fixable / clarification / out-of-scope)
2. Pick the few decisive experiments; pull from the staging shelf
3. Draft answer-first responses; make the deciding one unmissable
4. Apply a minimal revision that matches every promise
5. Cross-check: does the revised paper contain each claimed fix?
Output format
[Deciding objection] <one>
[New experiments] <the few, each tied to an objection>
[Response map] <objection -> answer-first reply>
[Revision diff] <promise -> exact edit>
[Champion test] can a champion win the room with this? (Y/N)
Reopen the current CFP for the exact window dates and any length limit on the response — both are per-edition.
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → HPCA-Skills/skills/hpca-author-response/SKILL.md