Response to Reviewers Letter: 2 Full Examples

A response to reviewers letter (also called a point-by-point response, response document, or rebuttal letter) is the document authors submit alongside a revised manuscript, addressing every comment raised by reviewers and the editor and explaining exactly what changed in response. It is the deliverable of the revise-and-resubmit stage — distinct from an appeal letter, which contests an outright rejection rather than responds to a revision invitation, and distinct from a desk rejection, where no reviewer comments exist to respond to at all. This guide covers the standard structure, tone, two complete worked example letters, the cover letter to the editor, when to appeal instead of comply, and how to handle desk rejection separately.

What this letter is (and isn’t)

If an editor has invited you to revise and resubmit — see CASRAI’s guide to what a revise and resubmit decision actually means and how the process runs end to end — the response to reviewers letter is the document that accompanies your revised manuscript back to the editorial office. Its job is narrow but essential: show the editor and reviewers, comment by comment, that every concern was read, taken seriously, and either addressed in the text or explained.

This is a different document from an appeal letter. An appeal follows an actual rejection and asks an editor to reverse that decision, typically on procedural grounds; see CASRAI’s guide on how to write an appeal letter to a journal editor for that scenario specifically. A response to reviewers letter, by contrast, follows an invitation to revise — the manuscript has not been rejected, and the task is to satisfy the concerns raised, not to argue that a closed decision was wrong. It’s also different from the reviewer’s own comments: for what reviewers actually write and how those comments are typically phrased, see CASRAI’s library of peer review feedback examples and reviewer comments to author, with worked examples. This guide is written from the author’s side: how to respond to those comments, not how to write them.

The standard point-by-point structure

Response letters vary somewhat by journal and field, but the widely cited practical framework from W.S. Noble’s “Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Response to Reviewers” (PLOS Computational Biology, 2017) captures conventions that show up across most STEM and biomedical journals, and the underlying logic holds in social-science and humanities fields too, even where format expectations differ slightly. The core unit repeats for every comment raised:

Quote the reviewer’s comment verbatim. Copy the original comment in full (often set off with quotation marks, italics, or a distinct color/indent) rather than paraphrasing it. This lets the editor and reviewer verify at a glance that you engaged with what was actually written, not a softened version of it.
Respond directly underneath. State plainly what you did: agreed and revised, partially addressed, or respectfully declined and why. Avoid burying the answer in a long preamble — editors and reviewers are reading dozens of these letters and want the disposition of each point immediately clear.
Cite the specific manuscript change. Point to exactly where the revision appears — page number, section heading, paragraph, or line number if the journal uses a line-numbered revised manuscript (many require one specifically for this purpose). “We have added a sentence clarifying the exclusion criteria (Methods, p. 6, lines 142–145)” is far more useful to a reviewer doing a second-round check than “We have clarified this in the Methods.”

Two structural conventions worth following: number every comment (matching the reviewer’s own numbering if they used one, or imposing your own numbering if they wrote unstructured prose), and use consistent typography — for example, reviewer text in italics or a shaded block, author response in plain text — so the letter is easy to scan. Some journals supply a template or explicitly request a particular format (a two-column table is common in some fields); always check the decision letter and journal instructions for authors before choosing a layout, since a required format that isn’t followed can itself delay the next round.

Open the letter with a short cover paragraph: thank the editor and reviewers for their time, briefly summarize the nature of the revisions at a high level, and note if anything outside the requested scope also changed (for example, an error caught during revision). Close with a short statement confirming the revised manuscript is ready for further consideration. The point-by-point responses go in between — see the dedicated cover-letter section below for a full template.

Tone: professional and non-defensive, even in disagreement

Reviewers are unpaid volunteers, and editors are reading the response letter partly as a signal of how the authors will behave as collaborators if the manuscript is accepted. A few conventions matter more than they might seem to:

Never argue with a comment you plan to ignore — explain it. If a reviewer has misunderstood something, the instinct is to say they’re wrong. A more effective response identifies where the manuscript itself created the ambiguity (“we recognize the original wording in the Introduction was unclear on this point”) and shows the fix, rather than framing the exchange as the reviewer’s error.
When you genuinely disagree and won’t make the change, still do the work. The strongest version of a respectful decline runs the analysis or check the reviewer asked for, reports the result in the response letter, and then explains why it doesn’t belong in the manuscript itself — rather than simply asserting the request is unnecessary. This shows engagement rather than dismissal, and it gives the editor something concrete to evaluate.
Avoid characterizing the reviewer. Language like “the reviewer failed to notice” or “as any reader would understand” reads as adversarial. Neutral phrasing (“Reviewer 2 raises a valid concern about X; we have addressed this by…”) keeps the exchange focused on the manuscript, not the person.
Don’t over-apologize or under-explain. A response letter is not a confession; it’s a technical accounting of what changed and why. Brief acknowledgment of a valid point is appropriate; extended apology is not and can read as padding.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) publishes general guidance for authors, reviewers, and editors on handling disagreements and conduct concerns during peer review; if a specific comment raises something beyond an ordinary content disagreement — a reviewer request that seems out of scope, or a conduct concern — that is a matter to raise with the handling editor directly rather than litigate inside the response letter itself.

What a disagreement needs to hold up

A respectful tone is necessary but not sufficient — a decline to make a requested change is only persuasive if it’s backed by something concrete. In practice that means one or more of:

A result, not an assertion. If a reviewer questions a method or asks for a sensitivity check, running it and reporting the outcome in the letter (“we re-ran the analysis excluding site C; the effect size changed by less than 2%, see attached table”) is far stronger than asserting the concern doesn’t apply.
A citation to the literature or the journal’s own precedent. If the requested change would contradict established methodological practice in the field, citing the relevant methods paper or standard is more persuasive than a general defense of the original approach.
A scope boundary, stated plainly. Some requests are legitimate but out of scope for the current paper (a genuinely separate study, a much larger dataset, a different research question). Naming that boundary explicitly — and, where honest, noting it as a direction for future work — is a legitimate decline, as long as it isn’t used to wave away a core methodological objection.
Internal consistency. If two reviewers effectively ask for opposite things, that tension itself is evidence a full accommodation of both isn’t possible without contradiction, and is worth stating directly (see the next section).

What doesn’t hold up: restating the original claim in different words, appealing to the paper’s overall contribution as a reason to skip a specific methodological concern, or declining without addressing why the reviewer raised the point in the first place. Editors read enough of these letters to recognize a non-answer.

Multiple reviewers with conflicting requests

Manuscripts commonly go to two or three reviewers, and it is routine for their comments to conflict — one may ask you to shorten the discussion section while another asks you to expand the same section with additional context. A few approaches handle this without the letter reading as evasive:

Organize by reviewer, not by merged topic. Use clear subheadings (“Response to Reviewer 1,” “Response to Reviewer 2”) so each reviewer can find and check their own points quickly, even if the underlying manuscript change addresses more than one reviewer’s comment at once.
Cross-reference when comments overlap or conflict. If Reviewer 2’s point 3 is answered by the same change made in response to Reviewer 1’s point 5, say so explicitly (“as noted in our response to Reviewer 1, comment 5, we have…”) rather than duplicating the explanation or, worse, leaving Reviewer 2’s comment looking unanswered.
Name the conflict and explain your resolution. When two reviewers want opposite things, don’t silently pick one side. State plainly: “Reviewer 1 requested a more concise discussion section, while Reviewer 3 requested additional context on X; we have retained the added context requested by Reviewer 3 but tightened the surrounding prose elsewhere to control overall length.” This shows both reviewers you registered their competing requests rather than ignoring one.
Escalate genuine impasses to the editor, not the reviewers. If a conflict can’t be reconciled by a reasonable compromise, it is appropriate to flag this directly to the editor in the cover paragraph or a separate note, since the editor is the one with authority to weigh reviewer input against each other and make a final call.

For a deeper look at this specific problem, including how to word the letter when the two requests are flatly incompatible, see CASRAI’s guide on handling conflicting or contradictory reviewer feedback. If the constraint is a word or page limit rather than a conflict between reviewers, see prioritizing major vs. minor reviewer comments, and if the manuscript has multiple authors dividing the work, see how co-authors should divide response-to-reviewers work.

Two complete worked response letters

Both letters below are illustrative composites constructed to demonstrate the structure and tone described above. Neither is drawn from a real manuscript, journal, or reviewer, and neither should be read as an account of an actual submission.

Example 1: a straightforward minor-revision case

This example represents the common case — the manuscript was well received, and the requested changes are genuine but not contentious.

Dear Dr. [Editor Name],

Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript, “[Manuscript Title]” (MS #12345), and to the reviewers for their careful and constructive comments. We have addressed every point raised below, with the corresponding changes indicated by page and line number in the revised manuscript. A clean copy and a tracked-changes version are both included.

Reviewer 1, Comment 1:
“The sample size justification in the Methods is thin — please state whether a formal power calculation was performed.”

Response: We agree this was missing. We have added a power calculation to the Methods (p. 4, lines 88–93), showing the study was powered to detect a medium effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.5) at 80% power with our final sample of n = 142.

Reviewer 1, Comment 2:
“Figure 2’s axis labels are too small to read at print size.”

Response: Corrected. Figure 2 has been regenerated with larger axis labels and a higher-resolution export (see revised Figure 2, and Supplementary File 1 for the source data).

Reviewer 2, Comment 1:
“The Discussion doesn’t acknowledge that the recruiting sites were all urban academic centers — this should be noted as a limitation on generalizability.”

Response: We thank the reviewer for flagging this. We have added a new sentence to the Limitations paragraph explicitly noting the urban academic-center recruiting base and its implications for generalizability to community or rural settings (Discussion, p. 12, lines 260–264).

Reviewer 2, Comment 2:
“A few citations in the Introduction are more than fifteen years old for what is a fast-moving area — please check whether more recent work should be cited instead.”

Response: We have reviewed the flagged citations and replaced two with more recent studies covering the same claims (Introduction, p. 2, references 4 and 7 in the revised reference list); the remaining older citations refer to foundational methodological work that has not been superseded, so we have retained them.

We believe the manuscript is substantially strengthened by these revisions and thank the editor and reviewers again for their time.

Sincerely,
[Corresponding Author]

Example 2: a hostile or partly-wrong reviewer, and how to push back respectfully

This is the harder and more useful case. Reviewer comments are sometimes terse, dismissive in tone, or simply factually incorrect about what the manuscript says or how the method works. The response still has to be professional — but professional does not mean capitulating to a request that isn’t justified. The excerpt below shows how to disagree and back that disagreement with evidence, per the “what a disagreement needs to hold up” section above.

Reviewer 2, Comment 1:
“This is a fundamentally flawed study. The authors clearly do not understand basic survey methodology — a response rate of 34% is far too low to draw any meaningful conclusions, and the paper should be rejected on this basis alone.”

Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s concern about response rate, which is a legitimate and important methodological question. We respectfully disagree that a 34% response rate invalidates the study’s conclusions, for three reasons, which we have now made explicit in the manuscript. First, a 34% response rate is consistent with published benchmarks for this survey mode and population — we have added a citation to [methodological reference] documenting typical response rates of 25–40% for comparable mailed surveys in this field (Methods, p. 5, lines 108–112). Second, we have added a formal non-response bias analysis comparing early versus late respondents on all available demographic variables, which found no statistically significant differences (new Supplementary Table S2, referenced at Methods, p. 5, line 115). Third, we have added an explicit limitation acknowledging that non-response bias cannot be fully ruled out and that our estimates should be interpreted as applying to survey-responsive members of the population (Limitations, p. 13, lines 288–292). We believe these additions directly address the reviewer’s concern with evidence rather than assertion, and we have not altered the study’s central conclusions, which we believe remain supported.

Reviewer 2, Comment 2:
“The authors say in the abstract that this is the first study of its kind, which is simply false — I am aware of at least two prior papers on this exact topic.”

Response: We thank the reviewer for this correction and take it seriously. On checking, we were unable to identify the two prior papers the reviewer refers to in the major databases we searched (see our search strategy, Methods, p. 3), and the reviewer’s comment does not include citations we could verify. We have nonetheless removed the “first study” claim from the abstract and Introduction, since we cannot substantiate primacy either way and the claim is not necessary to the paper’s contribution (revised Abstract; Introduction, p. 1, line 22). If the reviewer can provide the specific citations, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss and cite them in a further revision.

Reviewer 2, Comment 3:
“Table 3 is unreadable and the statistics are wrong.”

Response: We have reformatted Table 3 for clarity (revised Table 3). On the statistics: we re-checked every value in Table 3 against our analysis output and did not find an error; if the reviewer can identify which specific value(s) appear incorrect, we would be glad to investigate further in the next round. We recognize this comment may in part reflect the readability issue noted above, which we hope the reformatted table resolves.

Note what this example does not do: it doesn’t accuse the reviewer of being wrong, doesn’t ask the editor to discount the review, and doesn’t skip any comment because it seemed unfair. Each pushback is paired with either a concrete addition to the manuscript (the non-response bias analysis), a genuine concession where the reviewer had a fair point buried in harsh delivery (removing the unverifiable “first study” claim), or a specific, falsifiable request for clarification (asking which value in Table 3 is wrong) rather than a flat denial.

The cover letter to the editor

The cover letter is the short note that precedes the point-by-point responses (see Example 1 above for a complete cover paragraph in context). It serves a different purpose from the detailed responses: it gives the editor, who is unlikely to re-read every point-by-point exchange in full before making a decision, a fast summary of what changed and why the manuscript is ready for another look. A complete cover letter typically includes:

The manuscript title and submission number.
A brief thank-you to the editor and reviewers.
A short, high-level summary of the substance of the revision (one or two sentences — “we have added a formal power calculation, a non-response bias analysis, and clarified the generalizability limitations raised by both reviewers”).
Any changes made that were not directly requested by a reviewer (a corrected error, an updated citation, a co-author change), stated explicitly so nothing looks like an unexplained addition.
Confirmation that a point-by-point response and, if requested, a tracked-changes manuscript are both included.
A closing statement that the manuscript is ready for further consideration.

Keep it to a few short paragraphs — the cover letter is a summary and a courtesy, not a place to re-litigate individual comments. That level of detail belongs in the point-by-point section.

When to appeal instead of comply

Most response letters should comply, in some form, with every comment — even a partial or evidence-based decline, as in Example 2 above, is a form of engagement rather than a refusal. An appeal is a different and much less common move: it contests the editorial decision itself, and it follows an actual rejection, not a revise-and-resubmit invitation. A few signals distinguish when an appeal, rather than a compliant or evidence-backed response, is the right move:

The manuscript was rejected outright, not invited to revise. If you have received a revise-and-resubmit decision, there is nothing to appeal — the correct response is the point-by-point letter described in this guide, not an appeal.
There is a specific, demonstrable factual or procedural error — a reviewer who reviewed the wrong manuscript version, a reviewer with an undisclosed conflict of interest, or a decision that appears to rest on a reviewer’s clear factual mistake about the data or method, not simply a difference of scientific opinion.
You have concrete new evidence to offer, not just a restatement of the original argument. Editors are unlikely to reverse a rejection based on authors simply reasserting a position the reviewers already considered.

Compliance, including a well-evidenced disagreement inside a response letter, is almost always the more effective path when the manuscript is still in the revise-and-resubmit process, since it keeps the paper moving toward a decision rather than opening a separate, often slower, procedural review. See CASRAI’s dedicated guide on how to write an appeal letter to a journal editor for the appeal process itself, including what editors and COPE guidance expect an appeal to contain.

How this differs from a desk rejection

A desk rejection happens before peer review even begins — the editor declines the manuscript without sending it to reviewers at all, which means there are no reviewer comments to respond to and no point-by-point letter to write. It is a different event from everything else on this page, and it is usually a scope or fit decision rather than a verdict on the work’s quality: journals commonly desk-reject manuscripts that are out of scope for the journal, don’t meet a basic methodological or reporting bar, are formatted incorrectly, or simply don’t rise to the top of a highly competitive submission pool that particular week. A desk rejection is not evidence the research is unsound, and it does not carry the same weight as a rejection following full peer review. See CASRAI’s dedicated guide, Desk Rejection: What It Means and How to Avoid It, for the common editorial reasons behind it and practical steps to reduce the odds before submission.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a response to reviewers letter be?

There’s no fixed length — it should be as long as it takes to address every comment specifically. Letters responding to a handful of minor comments might run one or two pages; letters responding to two or three reviewers with substantive methodological concerns can run considerably longer. Length driven by genuinely addressing each point is normal; length driven by padding or repetition is not.

Do I need to respond to every single comment, even trivial ones?

Yes. Leaving any comment unaddressed, even a minor typo flag, risks the impression that the revision was incomplete, and reviewers checking a second-round submission will often look specifically for the comments they raised. A one-line “Corrected, thank you” is sufficient for trivial points — the requirement is completeness of coverage, not depth on every item.

What if “Reviewer 2” seems unreasonably harsh compared to the other reviewers?

It happens often enough that it’s a running joke in academia, but a harsh or terse tone doesn’t excuse skipping the substance of the comment. Separate the delivery from the content: extract the actual methodological or factual claim buried in a dismissive comment, and respond to that claim on its merits, either by making the change or by providing the kind of evidence-backed decline shown in Example 2 above. If a comment crosses from harsh into something that raises a genuine conduct concern, raise that with the handling editor directly rather than responding to it in the letter itself.

What if I can’t make a requested change within the revision deadline?

Contact the handling editor before the deadline rather than submitting late or incomplete. Editors regularly grant extensions for legitimate reasons (additional data collection, access to a resource, co-author availability); an unexplained late or partial resubmission is handled far less favorably than the same delay flagged in advance.

Should the response letter and the revised manuscript be submitted as separate files?

Follow the journal’s submission system instructions exactly — most manuscript-tracking platforms have a dedicated upload slot for the response-to-reviewers document, separate from the revised manuscript file and from any marked-up/tracked-changes version. Submitting the response letter in the wrong slot, or omitting a tracked-changes version when one is requested, is a common and avoidable cause of delay at the editorial-office check stage.

Is a response to reviewers letter the same as an appeal letter?

No. A response to reviewers letter follows a revise-and-resubmit invitation and works within that process; an appeal letter follows a rejection and asks the editor to reverse it. See CASRAI’s appeal letter guide for that separate scenario, and the “when to appeal instead of comply” section above for how to tell which situation you’re in.

Is a desk rejection the same as being rejected after peer review?

No, and the distinction matters for how you read the outcome. A desk rejection happens before reviewers see the manuscript at all and is usually about scope, fit, or a basic submission requirement, not a judgment on the work’s quality. A rejection after peer review means reviewers engaged with the substance of the manuscript and the editor weighed their comments. See CASRAI’s desk rejection guide for more detail.