respond-to-referees

Generate a structured response-to-referees document mapping referee comments to manuscript revisions.

4|Updated Aug 22, 2025
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/stevejbickley/arcbita-geek-seminars --skill respond-to-referees-stevejbickley
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent▼
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: respond-to-referees
Source: https://github.com/stevejbickley/arcbita-geek-seminars/tree/main/sessions/2026-07-29-ClaudeCodeforAppliedSocialScience/starter/.claude/skills/respond-to-referees
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/stevejbickley/arcbita-geek-seminars --skill respond-to-referees-stevejbickley

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

What problem does it solve? Drafting a response-to-referees document during a revise-and-resubmit round is tedious and error-prone: every referee comment must be matched to a specific change in the revised manuscript, classified, and answered politely, and any fabricated page or line reference can get a paper desk-rejected. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Comment-to-Revision Mapping: Parses referee reports into discrete concerns and locates each one in the revised manuscript via grep-based search across .tex, .pdf, .docx, .html, and Markdown sources. - Coverage Classification: Labels every concern as Addressed, Partially addressed, Deferred, or Disagreement, and flags anything unaddressed for author input. - Verified Claims: Runs a mandatory post-flight verification step with a claim-verifier subagent to confirm every "we added X on page Y" statement actually exists in the manuscript. - Use Case: After receiving referee reports on a journal submission, point the Skill at the report and your revised manuscript to produce a complete response-to-referees.md with a per-referee reply section and an editor-friendly concern matrix. ## Quick Start Ask the assistant to generate a response-to-referees document from your referee report PDF and revised manuscript file, classifying each comment and verifying every cited revision location.

Frequently Asked Questions about respond-to-referees

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I write a response to referees for a journal revision?▼

Provide the referee report and your revised manuscript, and the Skill parses each comment, locates the matching revision, classifies coverage, and drafts a courteous 3-6 sentence response per concern. It outputs a response-to-referees.md with per-referee sections and a summary concern matrix.

How to respond to a referee comment you disagree with?▼

Classify the concern as Disagreement and draft a response that acknowledges the point, respectfully explains the reasoning for retaining the original framing, and offers any compromise. The tone guidance avoids defensiveness and phrases like "the referee is wrong".

Can it read referee reports in PDF or Word format?▼

Yes, PDF reports are converted with pdftotext and DOCX or HTML files with pandoc or docx2txt into temporary plain-text files for searching. TeX, QMD, Markdown, and TXT files are read directly without conversion.

What happens if a referee comment was not addressed in the revision?▼

Any concern with no evidence of a revision or a documented deferral rationale is marked UNADDRESSED and surfaced in a mandatory warning summary in the final chat message, so nothing is silently omitted before submission.

How does it prevent wrong page numbers in the response letter?▼

A mandatory post-flight verification step extracts every "we added X on page Y" claim and hands it to a claim-verifier subagent that checks the revised manuscript. Unverifiable claims are downgraded to Partially addressed or Deferred, and the --no-verify flag can opt out.