Template
How to answer peer review point by point without losing the argument
You received a revise-and-resubmit decision and now have to answer every comment in a way that gets the paper accepted.
- Typical length
- Frequently longer than the paper’s discussion section — three to ten pages depending on how many comments arrived. There is no penalty for thoroughness here.
- Usual tense
- Past tense for what you changed (“we added”), present tense for what the revised manuscript now says.
- First person
- Required in practice. The letter is a direct reply from the authors, and “we” is the normal subject throughout.
- Tone
- Even and factual, including with a review you find unfair. The editor reads every word, and tone influences the decision more than authors expect.
- File formats
- Most journals want a clean manuscript plus a tracked-changes copy, with the response letter uploaded separately rather than pasted into the manuscript.
- Check the decision letter
- The resubmission deadline, whether the editor added requirements of their own, and whether the journal specifies a response-letter format.
THE SKELETON
Section by section
Each block gives you the heading, what it has to accomplish, and the questions that fill it.
1
Note to the Editor
A short paragraph thanking the editor, confirming you have addressed the reviews, and flagging anything the editor specifically needs to know before reading further.
- Which of the editor’s own requirements did the decision letter set out?
- Is there any comment you did not act on, and have you signaled it here?
- Did the paper change substantially enough that the editor should know before reading?
2
Summary of Major Changes
Four to six bullets covering the structural changes: new analyses, added data, reorganized sections, cut material. It lets a busy editor see the shape of the revision at once.
- Which three changes most improved the paper?
- Did any section move, merge, or disappear?
- Did the word count, figure count, or reference list change materially?
3
Response Format and Conventions
State the layout you are using — reviewer comment quoted in full, your response beneath, and the revised text quoted with its new location. Consistency is what makes the letter easy to check.
- Are comments numbered per reviewer, such as R1.1, R1.2?
- How will you visually distinguish comment, response, and manuscript text?
- Are you quoting page and line numbers from the revised file or the tracked-changes file?
4 · usually 70–80% of the letter
Point-by-Point Responses
Every comment reproduced verbatim and answered separately, including the ones you consider trivial. Each response says what you changed and where.
- Have you split multi-part comments so that each part gets its own answer?
- Does each response name the specific change and its location?
- Have you quoted the new or revised text so the reviewer need not open the manuscript?
- Is any comment left without a reply?
5
Where You Disagree
For comments you decline, give the reasoning and the evidence, and offer a partial accommodation where one is possible. Declining is allowed; ignoring is not.
- What is the substantive reason you are not making this change?
- Is there a smaller change — a caveat, a clarification, a footnote — that meets the underlying concern?
- Could the comment indicate that your text was unclear rather than wrong?
- Does your wording stay respectful when read by someone who is tired?
6
Closing and Files Submitted
Close briefly and list what you are uploading: clean manuscript, tracked-changes version, revised figures, updated supplements.
- Which files does the journal require for a revision?
- Are the tracked-changes and clean versions actually identical in content?
- Have you updated the supplementary material to match the revised text?
SENTENCE STARTERS
Phrasing you can adapt
Lift these and change the specifics. Academic phrasing is a shared convention, not something each writer has to reinvent.
We thank the reviewer for this observation and have revised the section accordingly.
We agree, and have added the requested analysis to page …, lines …
This was an oversight on our part; the text now reads: “…”
We have clarified this point as suggested.
We appreciate this suggestion but have not adopted it, for the following reason: …
We take the reviewer’s point, though the design does not permit … Instead, we have added a caveat at …
The additional analysis is outside the scope of the present dataset; we now note this as a limitation.
We suspect this comment reflects a lack of clarity in the original text, which we have rewritten.
See page 7, lines 14–21 of the revised manuscript.
The revised passage now reads: “…”
This is addressed in the new subsection, “…”.
A new supplementary table (Table S3) reports these values in full.
Questions about the response to reviewers
Do I have to make every change a reviewer asks for?
No, but you must answer every comment. A reasoned decline with evidence is normal and generally accepted; silence is what causes a revision to be sent back.
What if two reviewers ask for opposite changes?
Say so explicitly, explain which route you took and why, and address both reviewers in the same response. Editors are used to arbitrating this and would rather you raise it than pick one silently.
How should I handle a review that seems hostile?
Answer the substance and ignore the tone. If a comment is factually wrong, correct it with a citation rather than an adjective. If a review is genuinely abusive, raise it with the editor separately rather than in the letter.
Should I quote the revised text in the letter?
Yes, for anything substantive. Reviewers work from the letter first, and quoting the new passage means they can evaluate the change without hunting through the manuscript.
How long should I take over a revision?
Within the deadline in the decision letter, and ask for an extension early if you need one. Journals grant them routinely; missing the date without contact can convert a revision into a new submission.
Related templates
An outline is a start
Plan mode is the rest
Copyeditor’s Plan mode turns a structure like this into sections you produce one at a time, with citations landing in the bibliography as you go.
