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:

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:

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