Jacs revision

Revision and Response to Reviewers (jacs-revision)

When to trigger

• A decision letter (major/minor revision, or reject-with-encouragement) arrived
• You need to triage referee comments into experiments vs edits vs rebuttals
• You are drafting the point-by-point response letter
• You must decide whether to appeal or to resubmit elsewhere

Triage the reports first

Sort every numbered comment into one bucket:

Bucket	Action
Data-required	A control, extra characterization, X-ray, kinetics, or scope substrate is genuinely needed → do the experiment
Clarification	A real point the text/figure can fix without new data → edit + point to the change
Defensible disagreement	Reviewer is mistaken or asks beyond scope → rebut politely with evidence
Optional/over-reach	Nice-to-have; address briefly or explain why out of scope

Address the rigor-critical comments (purity, characterization, mechanism support, reproducibility) first — these are the ones that block acceptance at JACS.

Response-letter structure

1. Opening — thank the editor/reviewers; summarize the main changes and any new data/figures/SI added.
2. Point by point — quote each comment, then respond. For each: state the change, where it is in the revised manuscript/SI (section, figure, page), and the new evidence.
3. Quote the new text — paste added/changed passages so reviewers don't hunt.
4. Rebuttals — for disagreements, be respectful and evidence-based; concede where the reviewer improves the paper.
5. Marked manuscript — provide a tracked/colored version if requested.

Doing the new chemistry well

• New experiments must meet the same rigor bar: full characterization, controls, CCDC deposition for any new structure, reproducible procedures (route to jacs-methods).
• New compounds → add full SI entries and spectra copies (route to jacs-supplementary).
• If a requested experiment fails or contradicts a claim, report it honestly and adjust the claim rather than hiding it.

Tone

• Professional, specific, and complete; never dismissive even when disagreeing.
• Make the reviewer's job easy: cross-reference every change to a location.
• If a comment is based on a misreading, fix the text so the next reader can't misread it too.

JACS revision ledger

Before drafting prose, make a revision ledger that separates editor-critical chemistry from ordinary cleanup. JACS revisions fail when a response looks complete but leaves one evidence gap unclosed. Track each item with four fields:

Field	JACS-specific check
Claim under review	What exact novelty, scope, mechanism, selectivity, or structure claim did the referee challenge?
New evidence	Which experiment, characterization trace, spectrum, crystallographic deposit, kinetic run, or control now supports it?
Manuscript/SI location	Main-text figure/table, scheme, or SI page where the reader can verify the fix without searching.
Claim adjustment	Whether the language is strengthened, narrowed, or hedged because the new evidence changed the inference.

Use the ledger to decide whether a comment is truly answered. A reviewer asking for "more evidence" is not answered by a paragraph; it is answered by a trace, table, structure, or explicitly narrowed claim. Conversely, a referee misunderstanding that came from ambiguous prose should produce both a response-letter explanation and a revised sentence in the manuscript so the same misreading cannot recur in the next round.

Checklist

• Every numbered comment has a response — none skipped
• Rigor-critical comments addressed with real data, not words
• New compounds/structures fully characterized and deposited (CCDC)
• Each response cites the exact location of the change
• Added/changed text quoted in the letter
• Disagreements rebutted with evidence and courtesy
• Claims softened or revised where new data require it
• Marked-up manuscript prepared if requested

Anti-patterns

• Responding "we have addressed this" without saying where or how
• Adding new compounds without adding their SI characterization
• Arguing with a referee instead of fixing the ambiguous text
• Quietly dropping an inconvenient result instead of reporting it
• Over-claiming again in the revision after softening in round one
• Ignoring a rigor request and hoping the editor overrides the referee

Output format

【Decision】major / minor / reject-with-encouragement
【Triage】data-required: [...]; clarify: [...]; rebut: [...]
【New experiments】done? characterized + deposited? Y/N
【Response letter】point-by-point complete? Y/N
【Claims adjusted】[...]
【Next】resubmit via Paragon Plus → await decision

Related resources

• jacs-methods — rigor bar for new experiments
• jacs-supplementary — adding SI for new compounds
• jacs-referee-strategy — anticipated objections to map onto the actual reports