Reviewer Response Letters (imaging journals)
Treat the response letter as an editor-facing verification document: every reviewer concern gets an ID, a classification, a concrete action, and a traceable manuscript location.
Core stance
- Completeness — every comment gets an ID and a response, cross-reference, or an explicit unresolved flag. Nothing ignored.
- Action mapping — each reply maps to a concrete action:
ACCEPT_TEXT,ACCEPT_ANALYSIS,NEW_EXPERIMENT,ADD_RESULT,SOFTEN_CLAIM,CLARIFY,DISAGREE_WITH_REASON,AUTHOR_INPUT_NEEDED. - Traceability — every claimed change cites a section/page/line/figure/table/supplement, or a visible placeholder. No vague "we have revised accordingly."
- Factuality — never invent experiments, analyses, statistics, citations, line numbers, figure panels, editor instructions, or changes not actually made.
- Tone — cooperative, evidence-forward; disagree only with scientific/scope reasoning, never dismissively.
- Imaging-aware — common imaging-AI reviewer asks (external validation, leakage, calibration, reader study/MRMC, IBSI reproducibility, subgroup/fairness) routed to the right skill.
When to use
- "Help me respond to these reviewer comments." / "Draft the rebuttal for this major revision."
- "Audit my draft response for completeness/tone/traceability."
- "审稿意见回复" for an imaging manuscript.
When to open extra files
| File | Open when |
|---|---|
| references/action-mapping.md | Classifying comments and mapping each to a concrete action + manuscript location |
| references/imaging-reviewer-playbook.md | Handling the recurring imaging-AI/radiomics asks (validation, leakage, calibration, MRMC, IBSI) and difficult cases |
| references/response-audit-gate.md | Final audit of a response letter, complex/conflicting reviewer comments, many analysis requests, or when traceability/factuality must be locked before resubmission |
Workflow
- Intake — split the decision letter into atomic comments; assign stable IDs (R1-1, R1-2, R2-1 …). Note the editor's overall ask.
- Classify each (action-mapping.md): major/minor; analysis / clarification / claim / reference / presentation; feasible vs needs author input.
- Map to action + location — what changes, where; if it needs a new analysis/experiment,
route it (stats / reporting / figure) and mark
AUTHOR_INPUT_NEEDEDuntil done. - Draft each response — restate the comment, state the action, quote/point to the revised text + location; calibrate tone; disagree only with reasons.
- For final response packages, open
response-audit-gate.mdand maintain the response ledger before calling the letter complete. - Audit — completeness (every comment answered), traceability (every claim located), factuality (no fabricated change), tone, and consistency across reviewers (conflicting asks reconciled).
- Output the letter + an unresolved/author-input list.
Output contract
Response letter— per comment:ID | Reviewer comment (quoted) | Response | Action | Location.Summary of changes— short editor-facing overview.Response audit— for final packages: every comment has an action, location, evidence artifact/status, and no unsupported claimed change.Unresolved / author input needed— comments requiring data/decisions only the author can provide (e.g. "run external validation," "confirm patient-level split").待确认（中文）— for Chinese authors, the items needing confirmation.
Never claim a change that was not made. If a requested analysis is not yet done, say so and mark it pending rather than fabricating a result.
Handoffs
New statistics (external validation, DeLong, calibration, MRMC) → radiology-stats;
checklist gaps a reviewer cited → radiology-reporting; new/edited prose → radiology-writing/
radiology-polishing; new figures → radiology-figure.
