Structured Rebuttals in LaTeX

The rebuttal LaTeX package provides means for writing structured journal and conference paper rebuttals.

Features

• Creation of a master list of referee comments and the corresponding replies
• Support for cross-referencing the changes (i.e., additions, deletions, and changes) within the original manuscript and the rebuttal letter

Getting Started

To use the package, simply load rebuttal in the document preamble as follows:

\usepackage{rebuttal}

Also make sure the xcolor package has been loaded using the following options:

• dvipsnames
• svgnames
• x11names

Please refer to the letter example for necessary preamble setup.

Afterwards, you can structure the rebuttal using (multiple) rebuttal environment(s).

Usage

A well-structured rebuttal typically consists of the following parts:

1. a master list of referee comments and author's replies, and
2. clearly highlighted changes to the manuscript that stem from reviewers' comments.

The following sections provide an overview of the package's functionality that supports authors in producing the above content in a consistent manner.

Structuring the Rebuttal

The rebuttal environment can contain several blocks that refer to editor's or specific reviewers' comments and your replies to referees' comments. Specifically, the environment is expected to contain a comment and an answer environment. The general layout looks as follows:

\begin{rebuttal}[Editor's Comments]
  \begin{comment}
    % Reviewer's comment
  \end{comment}
  \begin{answer}
    % The reply
  \end{answer}
\end{rebuttal}

Annotating Changes to the Manuscript

Within the manuscript, three main commands can be used to denote additions, deletions, or changes. The corresponding commands are \addition, \deletion, and \change.

All three commands require specifying their labels for referencing the modifications using the label option. Additionally, the ref option back references the original reviewer comment. While \addition and \deletion require a single argument. \change expects two arguments, where the first one denotes the changed text, and the second one the new text.

Annotating Multiple Paragraphs

Additionally to the provided markup commands, the package also defines equivalent environments for annotating multiple paragraphs:

\begin{additionenv}[label=a:par,ref=c:missing-motivations]
  \section{New Experiment}
  % new text
\end{additionenv}

\begin{changeenv}[label=ch:par,ref=c:missing-motivations]{old text}
  \section{Improved Experiment}
  % new text
\end{changeenv}

\begin{deletionenv}[label=d:par,ref=c:missing-motivations]
  \section{Useless Discussion}
  % old text
\end{deletionenv}

Referencing Multiple Changes

The ref option provided by markup commands may specify multiple labels:

\addition[label=a:new,ref={c:c1,c:c2}]{new text}.

Limitations

• Rebuttal markup cannot be used within floating environments such as figure and table, and the \caption command.