thedixitjain ECAI Author Response
ECAI gives you one response, and there is no revision round after it. This is not a journal rebuttal that precedes a Major Revision; it is a single, short, double-blind reply that the area chair reads before the accept/reject discussion. Write it as a precision instrument: fix what is factually wrong, supply the one number a reviewer said was missing, and give the area chair a clean reason to champion the paper.
For IJCAI-ECAI 2026 the author-response window is 7-10 April 2026, after the summary-reject phase (4 Mar) and before final notification (29 Apr). Verify the exact window and any length limit on the current call before writing.
What the response can and cannot do
| The response CAN | The response CANNOT |
|---|---|
| Correct a factual misreading ("the reviewer read Table 2 as X; it reports Y") | Add a new experiment or theorem that changes the contribution |
| Supply a specific number/clarification a reviewer explicitly requested | Re-run the study or promise a revised version — there is no revision round |
| Point to the exact line/lemma/figure that answers an objection | Argue taste or "significance" against a reviewer's judgment |
| Clarify scope a reviewer misjudged | Reveal author identity to make a credibility argument |
Structure (short and scannable)
Length is tight (verify the cap). Do not spend it on throat-clearing.
- One-line framing (optional, ≤1 sentence). The single most important correction, up front.
- Per-reviewer, per-point answers. Address the specific objections each reviewer raised, in their order. Lead each with the reviewer's concern in a few words, then the answer.
- Shared-concern block (if two reviewers raised the same point). Answer once, reference it.
Keep every answer evidenced and checkable: a table cell, a lemma number, a definition, a line in the supplement. An assertion the area chair cannot verify from the existing paper is worth little in a single-round process.
Double-blind discipline
The response is read under double-blind review. Do not:
- name your group, institution, or prior system;
- write "as we showed in our [X]" in a way that identifies you — cite neutrally;
- link a non-anonymized repository to prove a claim.
A de-anonymizing rebuttal can sink an otherwise-acceptable paper.
Triage: which points to answer
You cannot fix everything in a few hundred words. Prioritize:
- Factual errors that, uncorrected, justify rejection — highest value; these are winnable.
- Missing-number requests you can answer from work already done (a metric already computed, a proof already in the supplement).
- Clarifications of scope or claim the reviewer misread.
- Skip or briefly acknowledge pure-taste objections and requests that would require new work — promising future work does not move a single-round decision.
Worked micro-example (illustrative, fictional)
R2 says the completeness proof assumes a finite state space, making it inapplicable. The completeness result (Thm. 1) does not assume finiteness; it requires only that the fallback heuristic is admissible and the branching factor is finite, both stated in §3.1. The proof step R2 cites (line 214) bounds regret, not the state count. We will make the assumption list explicit in the camera-ready.
R3 asks for the node-expansion numbers on the IPC-2018 domains specifically. These are already in the supplement (Table S4); the median reduction there is reported per domain. We will surface a one-line summary in §4 of the camera-ready. (Answers an explicit request from work already done; promises only a minor, camera-ready-legal edit.)
Common failure modes
- Debating the area chair's future decision instead of arming an advocate with facts.
- Promising a revised paper — ECAI has no round in which to deliver it.
- Spreading the length limit thin across every minor comment instead of concentrating on the reject-driving points.
- Introducing new claims the reviewers could not check — often read as moving the goalposts.
- Leaking identity to bolster credibility.
Output format
[Response budget] length cap: <chars/words>; window: <dates>
[Reject-driving points] <list, each mapped to a checkable answer in the existing paper/supplement>
[Per-reviewer answers] R1: ... / R2: ... / R3: ... (concern -> evidenced reply)
[Camera-ready-legal promises] only minor edits (assumption lists, surfacing an existing number)
[Anonymity check] no author/institution/system identity revealed
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → ECAI-Skills/skills/ecai-author-response/SKILL.md