Paper Response To Reviewers

Paper Response to Reviewers

Scope

For handling journal or conference reviewer comments, especially IEEE Transactions and control, robotics, automation, aerospace, and intelligent-systems venues.

This is not a "generate the reply letter directly" template. It is a full revision loop:

understand the paper and the comments -> design the reply strategy -> revise the manuscript -> assess whether the revision suffices -> write the formal response letter -> verify locations and marked text

This skill produces the revision plan and the response letter. Editing the manuscript itself is higher-risk: have the user confirm manuscript edits, route structural rewrites to paper-argument-reconstructor, and final language to paper-polisher.

See references/response_letter_guide.md for the full severity/evidence grading, decision gates, conflicting-reviewer and multi-round handling, reply templates, and checklist. For a short reply, the core principles and rules below are enough.

Use another skill when the task is primarily:

• the short cover letter accompanying the submission (not the detailed replies): use paper-cover-letter (if available);
• restructuring an argument or section a reviewer attacked: use paper-argument-reconstructor (if available), then report the change here;
• final TeX-safe polishing of the reply text: use paper-polisher (if available).

Verification Mode

This skill has two modes. By default it plans and writes the response as described above. When the input is a response letter another tool or skill has already drafted, switch to verification mode instead of regenerating:

• do not overwrite the other tool's wording;
• check it against this skill's rules: promised-change-to-manuscript consistency, evidence-based (not bluffed) rebuttals, softened overstatements, no S3/S4 concern answered with future work alone, and mutually consistent replies across reviewers;
• report only the deviations and their locations; fix one in place only if it breaks a hard rule.

The suite's value is faithful, bounded output, not a competing rewrite. Verify rather than replace what a stronger generator already produced.

Core Principles

1. Understand the paper before handling comments. Identify its problem, method, theoretical assumptions, experimental support, core claims, and limitations.
2. Design the reply strategy before revising. Do not rewrite a comment directly into a reply.
3. Every reply must correspond to a real manuscript change. Do not fabricate experiments, proofs, figures, page numbers, sections, or marked edits.
4. Close the loop on every substantive comment.

Loop format:

reviewer concern -> hidden concern -> revision strategy -> manuscript modification -> evidence check -> response letter -> exact location

Write each formal reply in five moves:

quote the comment -> thank and state the position -> describe the concrete change -> give the reason it suffices -> point to the exact location (Section / Page / Eq / Fig / Table)

The position falls into one of five strategies (templates in the guide): accept-and-revise / partial accept (scope concession) / clarify or evidence-based rebuttal / added proof / added experiment.

Non-Negotiable Rules

• If the manuscript is not yet revised, output only a revision plan; never write "We have revised".
• Do not fabricate experiments, proofs, figures, page numbers, sections, or marked edits; pointers must be real, or left as [Section X, Page Y] placeholders.
• Every "we have added/revised" in the letter must correspond to a real edit findable in the manuscript (reply-manuscript consistency).
• Rebut only with a technical reason or manuscript evidence; never bluff. A rebuttal that cannot give a reason becomes a clarification or a concession.
• When a reviewer flags an overstatement, soften the claim to what the evidence supports (a conditional certificate) rather than defending the stronger wording.
• Do not answer an S3/S4 substantive concern with future work alone; future work must pass the decision gate (see the guide).
• When reviewers conflict, never promise one reviewer a change and the other the opposite; the editor reads all replies together.
• Stay respectful and specific. Never write "the reviewer misunderstood"; write "our original presentation was not sufficiently clear".

Rule-Conflict Escalation

If the user asks the reply to claim a change, a result, or a rebuttal the manuscript does not support, stop and ask before writing it. If your own draft drifts into an unsupported claim, an evidence-free rebuttal, a fabricated pointer, mutually inconsistent replies to different reviewers, or future work used to dodge an S3/S4 concern, revise it back without asking.

Workflow (7 stages)

See references/response_letter_guide.md for the tables and examples.

1. Understand the paper + claim audit. Check contributions, assumptions, and evidence; flag overstatements in the abstract/introduction/conclusion; tone down high-risk words.
2. Split and decompose the comments. First separate the raw review material by editor / associate editor / reviewer and give every comment a stable ID (R1-C1, R1-C2, ...); then break each long comment into minimal units and identify the explicit request plus the hidden concern.
3. Grade severity and required evidence. Assign S0-S4 to each comment and match the required evidence strength E0-E5.
4. Output the revision plan first. Before the manuscript is edited, output only a revision plan (a planned-action table); do not write "revised".
5. Revise the manuscript and mark the changes. Each substantive comment maps to at least one manuscript action; mark per journal policy (blue / latexdiff / tracked changes / none).
6. Assess sufficiency, and reconcile conflicts. Check each change reaches the required evidence strength; where reviewers conflict, resolve the trade-off and keep the replies mutually consistent.
7. Write the formal response letter. Only after the edits are done, the locations confirmed, and the evidence sufficient; reply per comment in the five moves.

Output Modes

• Manuscript not finished -> a revision plan (per comment: core concern / severity / required evidence / proposed action / needs user decision?); no final letter.
• Manuscript finished -> the final response letter (five moves per comment) plus a "promised change <-> manuscript location" check table, with [confirm] on anything unverified.
• Diagnosing an existing draft -> flag vague replies, evidence-free rebuttals, S3/S4 answered only with future work, reply-manuscript mismatches, conflicting replies, unsoftened claims, and disrespectful tone; then give a revised version.

For a long revision (several reviewers or many comments), output the response per reviewer rather than all at once, so each thread stays reviewable. For a second or later round, see the multi-round guidance in the guide.