A major revision decision is good news that does not feel like good news. The paper has passed the hardest filter, and the remaining work is largely under your control. The response letter is where that work is judged.
Editors read the response letter before re-reading the manuscript. A clear, well-organised response makes the revision look thorough even where the changes are modest. A defensive or disorganised one makes a strong revision look weak.
Structure the letter so it can be checked
The person reading your response is holding a list of comments and asking one question about each: was this addressed? Make that question trivially easy to answer.
- Open with a short paragraph thanking the editor and reviewers, and summarising the two or three most substantial changes. Three sentences.
- Reproduce every comment in full, numbered, in the order it was given.
- Under each comment, state what you changed and where, with a section number or page reference.
- Quote the revised text itself where the change is short.
Never summarise a reviewer’s comment in your own words before responding. It reads as though you are reframing the criticism, and it forces the editor to go back to the original to check.
The three kinds of comment
Comments you accept
Most of them. Say what you changed and move on. Do not over-thank, and do not explain at length why the reviewer was right. One sentence of acknowledgement, one of action, one pointing at the new text.
Comments you accept partially
Common where a reviewer asks for an additional analysis that is reasonable but not feasible. Do the closest thing you can, say clearly what you did and did not do, and explain the constraint without apologising for it. “We were unable to obtain the follow-up data, so we have instead reported a sensitivity analysis on the available sample and added a limitation” is a complete and acceptable answer.
Comments you decline
You are allowed to disagree. Reviewers are not always right, and a revision that implements every suggestion uncritically can end up worse than the original.
Declining well has a shape:
- Acknowledge the substance of the concern, specifically, not with a generic courtesy.
- Give the reason you are not making the change, grounded in the data, the design or the literature rather than in convenience.
- Offer something. A clarifying sentence in the text, an added limitation, a footnote. This shows the comment changed the paper even though it did not produce the requested change.
A reviewer who feels heard will usually accept a reasoned refusal. A reviewer who feels dismissed will look harder at everything else.
Tone
Write as though the reviewer will read the letter, because they usually will. Avoid “the reviewer misunderstands”, which is almost always both true and unhelpful; if a careful reader misunderstood, the text was ambiguous. “We can see that this was unclear as written, and have revised the passage” says the same thing and costs you nothing.
Avoid sarcasm entirely. It survives no amount of good intent in a document that will be read by three people who did not write it.
Practical mechanics
- Mark up the manuscript as well. Most journals want both a clean copy and a tracked-changes copy. Say in the letter which is which.
- Use consistent labelling. Reviewer 1, Comment 3 should be findable by that name in both the letter and any annotation.
- Answer the editor separately. Editor comments often concern scope, length or framing rather than method, and they usually carry more weight.
- Watch the deadline. If you need longer, ask before it passes. Most editors grant extensions readily and remember the ones who asked.
What a strong letter looks like from the outside
It is longer than you expect, easy to navigate, free of defensiveness, and specific about locations in the text. It concedes what should be conceded, holds firm where the science supports it, and never leaves a comment unanswered. Even a comment you consider trivial gets a line, because an unanswered comment is the one thing that reliably triggers another round.