From “Revise Major” to Acceptance in 14 Days
Reading time ~7 minutes · Published October 22, 2025
Format: narrative walkthrough.
Day 0 — Intake & triage
We received a “Revise Major” decision with three reviewer reports (R1–R3). The editor’s note prioritised scope clarity, method reproducibility, and figure quality. We created a two-column tracker: left column copied each comment verbatim; right column held our draft reply and the exact line anchors for edits.
R1: “The contribution is unclear compared with Smith et al. (2023).”
Action: we mapped each claim to evidence and flagged gaps needing experiments vs. narrative edits.
Day 2 — Scope & novelty alignment
We rewrote the gap paragraph and added a head-to-head comparison. Below shows an anonymized before→after with tracked changes:
Our method is better and useful in many cases. Prior work often ignores X.We address a documented gap in X: while Smith et al., 2023 optimise A for Y, no study isolates X→Z under real-world constraints C. Our contribution is a tested mechanism for X→Z with Δ improvement over A in Y (Table 2).
Day 5 — Methods & reproducibility
Reviewers could not reproduce the pipeline. We expanded parameters and linked code/data with a minimal working example (MWENB):
We trained with standard settings.We trained a stratified model (seed=42) with early-stopping (patience=10), LR=3e-4 (AdamW, β=(0.9,0.999), wd=1e-2). Inclusion: N=412 after pre-spec criteria; Exclusion: missing key covariate or outlier >3σ. Code + README and data subset (DOI: anonymised) reproduce Tables 2–3.
Day 8 — Figures, statistics, and clarity
We redrew plots at publication DPI, simplified legends, added units/CI, and moved dense panels to Supplement. Language edits focused on sentence economy and acronym discipline.
Results are significant and awesome.Primary endpoint improved by 12.4% (95% CI 8.1–16.7; p=0.001, Holm-adjusted). Effect persisted after sensitivity analyses (Fig. 3b; Table S1).
Day 11 — Point-by-point response
We compiled a calm, complete rebuttal. Each reviewer quote (bold) was followed by our response, then exact line anchors (e.g., “L142–L154”) and file names (“Fig_3b_v2.png”). Disagreements were evidence-backed and courteous.
Day 14 — Submission & outcome
We submitted three files: (1) clean manuscript, (2) tracked-changes manuscript, (3) response letter. The decision arrived 10 days later: “Accept after minor editorial edits.”
Stock language you can adapt
Scope/Novelty
“We revised the title, abstract, and final Introduction paragraph to position the work within [Journal]’s scope. We now isolate our contribution against [A,B,C] and add a direct comparison (Methods §2.4; Results Table 2).”
Methods/Reproducibility
“We provide step-by-step protocols with parameters, add a MWENB (code/data + README), and state inclusion/exclusion, randomisation, and blinding (Methods §2.3–§2.6).”
Figures/Statistics
“Figures were redrawn at required DPI with clearer labels/units; we report effect sizes with 95% CIs and adjusted p-values; complex panels moved to Supplement.”
Response Letter
“Below, we quote each reviewer in bold and respond in plain text, indicating exact line numbers and file names for all changes. We begin with a brief overview of major revisions.”