R&R Rebuttal & Response Letter (rfs-rebuttal)

When to trigger

• An RFS decision letter arrives with an editor letter and referee reports
• You have a revise-and-resubmit (or a "reject and resubmit") and must respond
• You need to plan which comments to fully address, partially address, or push back on

Revise the manuscript first (or in parallel). Do not draft the response letter around changes you have not actually made.

RFS revision reality

RFS runs a demanding multi-round review under a handling Editor (within the editor pool led by Executive Editor Tarun Ramadorai). An R&R is an opportunity, not an acceptance: the editor and referees expect substantive responses, new analysis where warranted, and a manuscript that is visibly better. The response letter is judged as carefully as the paper.

Two RFS-specific revision situations:

• Registered Report Stage 2. If the paper received Stage 1 in-principle acceptance, the Stage 2 review checks adherence to the pre-registered protocol, not whether results are "interesting." Your response letter must map each pre-specified analysis to its result and flag — transparently — any deviation and why. Adding unplanned analyses is fine but must be labeled exploratory, not slipped in as confirmatory.
• Code-release at revision. RFS makes public code release a condition of publication. Use the revision rounds to get the replication package clean; referees may re-run it. Do not defer this to post-acceptance.

Response-letter structure