Angewandte Chemie Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Wins (2026)
How to write a point-by-point response to reviewers for Angewandte Chemie International Edition, where the importance bar is carried into revision and the Communication format forces a Supporting Information decision.
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What makes this journal worth targeting
- IF 16.9 puts Angewandte Chemie International Edition in a visible tier — citations from papers here carry real weight.
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How to use this page well
These pages work best when they behave like tools, not essays. Use the quick structure first, then apply it to the exact journal and manuscript situation.
Question | What to do |
|---|---|
Use this page for | Building a point-by-point response that is easy for reviewers and editors to trust. |
Start with | State the reviewer concern clearly, then pair each response with the exact evidence or revision. |
Common mistake | Sounding defensive or abstract instead of specific about what changed. |
Best next step | Turn the response into a visible checklist or matrix before you finalize the letter. |
Quick answer: An Angewandte Chemie response to reviewers is a point-by-point rebuttal submitted as a separate document through the Wiley-GDCh portal, where the handling editor and the original 2 to 3 referees judge whether you cleared the journal's exceptional-importance and full-characterization bar. For every change, cite a page and line number reference so a referee can find it fast. The rule that decides most Angewandte rebuttals: when a referee challenges importance, answer with a sharper significance case, not more spectra, and route the new characterization into the Supporting Information.
Start with the Angewandte Chemie rebuttal readiness check before you submit, or work through this guide by hand. For broader cluster context, see the Angewandte Chemie journal overview.
What does an Angewandte Chemie response to reviewers require?
The Manusights Angewandte Chemie rebuttal scan. This guide tells you what the handling editor and the 2 to 3 referees look for in an Angewandte Chemie rebuttal. The scan tells you whether YOUR response document passes that check before you upload it to the Wiley-GDCh portal.
We reviewed Angewandte Chemie's own notice to authors and referee guidelines, Wiley submission documentation, and SciRev community reports, and compared them to our own pre-submission reviews of Angewandte-targeted manuscripts; the sources used are listed at the end. Use it to pressure-test the response document before you submit the revision. Your unpublished Angewandte chemistry never trains any AI model, and the file is deleted within 24 hours.
Three things make an Angewandte Chemie rebuttal different from a generic one:
- It is importance-led. Angewandte selects Communications and Research Articles for exceptional importance to general chemistry, and that bar is carried straight into revision. A referee who doubts the significance wants a sharper case for why the result matters across chemistry, not another spectrum.
- It is data-complete. Referees expect full spectroscopic, analytical, and where relevant mechanistic and computational characterization, with specialist validation routed into the Supporting Information.
- The Communication format constrains your options. The flagship Communication runs to about four printed pages and has no room to absorb the new experiments a referee requests.
How we built this guide: we read Angewandte Chemie's current notice to authors and referee guidelines, checked the Communication-versus-Research-Article formats and the single-anonymous review model against Wiley documentation, cross-referenced SciRev community reports, and compared all of it to our own pre-submission reviews of Angewandte rebuttals. Every claim below traces to a primary source or our review corpus.
One number changes the stakes of the whole revision. Angewandte is hybrid, so a subscription article carries no author fee. If you choose open access, the OnlineOpen charge is about USD 6,080 (EUR 4,880) per article. That is a sunk-cost reason to clear the revision in one round rather than risk a rejection that sends the work, and the fee, elsewhere.
Element | What Angewandte Chemie expects | What referees flag at re-review |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Cover letter, then point-by-point under Reviewer 1, 2, 3 | Free-form prose answering all comments together |
Importance | A sharper case for general-chemistry significance | More characterization where the doubt was about significance |
New data | Full characterization in the Supporting Information | "We have clarified this in the text" with no new data |
Specificity | Page and line number for every manuscript change | "We have updated the manuscript" with no location |
Format | A deliberate Communication-versus-Article decision | New main-text data crammed into a four-page Communication |
Consistency | Same answer to the same point across all referees | Different framing for Reviewer 1 vs Reviewer 3 |
Source: Angewandte Chemie notice to authors and referee guidelines, Wiley-VCH, accessed June 2026.
The copyable Angewandte Chemie rebuttal template
Because the original Angewandte referees read your point-by-point response before they re-open the chemistry, a clean, scannable structure does real work. Drop the skeleton below into your response document, swap the bracketed text for your own changes, and keep two habits the Angewandte format rewards: referee text and your reply in two distinct fonts or colors, and a page and line number on every change.
Dear Dr. [Handling Editor],
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript the manuscript title
(angew.[ID]). We are grateful to the referees for their careful
reports. In response, we have sharpened the case for the general-
chemistry importance of the result, added the [mechanistic /
computational / control] data the referees requested to the
Supporting Information, and revised Figure [N]. A point-by-point
response follows; referee comments are in bold and our replies in
plain text, with revised-manuscript page and line numbers given
for every change.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 1
Comment 1.1: "The advance over existing methods is incremental and
does not justify a Communication in Angewandte."
Response: We have sharpened the significance case. The revised
Introduction now states the specific general-chemistry problem the
result solves and quantifies the improvement over [closest prior
work] in a new entry to Table 1 (selectivity / scope / efficiency).
Changed text appears on page 2, lines 5 to 14.
Comment 1.2: "The mechanistic proposal is not supported by the
current data."
Response: We have added the [isotope-labeling / kinetic / DFT]
study requested, with the data in the Supporting Information
(Figures S12 to S15), and revised the mechanistic language. See
page 6, lines 18 to 24.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 2
Comment 2.1: "Characterization of compound 4 is incomplete."
Response: We agree. We have added 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and HRMS for
compound 4 to the Supporting Information (Figures S16 to S19) and
report the isolated yield and purity. See page 9, lines 4 to 11.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 3
Comment 3.1: "The generality of the method is overstated; only
electron-rich substrates are shown."
Response: We have added [N] electron-poor and heteroaromatic
substrates to the scope table (new Table 2) and softened the
generality claim to match the demonstrated range. See page 4,
lines 1 to 9, and Supporting Information Table S3.
We believe the revised manuscript now establishes the importance
and full characterization the referees asked for, and we look
forward to your decision.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author, on behalf of all authors]The template carries the four tokens that Angewandte referees actually scan for: a cover letter to the handling editor, a Reviewer 1 / 2 / 3 structure, explicit action language ("we have added", "we have revised", "we have sharpened"), and a page and line reference for every change, with new data routed to the Supporting Information.
The page-and-line rule: cite the location of every change
State the exact page and line number for each manuscript revision, and name the specific figure, table, or Supporting Information file you changed. Missing locations is the single most-cited rebuttal failure at Angewandte and across the Wiley chemistry journals, and it bites harder here than at a wordier journal because most of your new data lives in the SI, not in the four-page Communication a referee is holding.
Here is why a referee's experience hinges on the citation:
- A vague pointer reads as evasion. A referee who has to hunt for your new spectrum, yield, or scope entry assumes you would rather they did not find it.
- A precise pointer earns goodwill. A referee who can jump straight to page 9, lines 4 to 11, and then to Figures S16 to S19 in the Supporting Information finishes faster and re-reviews more favorably.
Two Angewandte-specific habits: cite line numbers from the revised file, not the original, and always name the Supporting Information figure or table number when the new characterization lives there rather than in the main text. Never write "we have addressed this in the manuscript" without a location.
Reviewer-text vs author-response typography
Make the referee's words and your reply visually distinct. Put each referee comment in bold or a colored text box, and keep your response in plain regular text directly beneath it. The handling editor and all referees scan dozens of these documents, and a rebuttal where comment and reply blur together costs you the attention you need to land a chemistry argument.
The distinction matters more at Angewandte than at a wordier journal. Your strongest replies point to numbered Supporting Information figures and to a tightened significance paragraph, so a referee who can follow the comment-to-reply-to-evidence chain at a glance is the referee who recommends acceptance.
Tone calibration: how to phrase the hard replies
The referees see your tone across every comment. A defensive reply to a referee who challenged the importance of the work reads worse than the gap in your significance case itself. Calibrate.
Bad (defensive or vague) | Better (substantive and gracious) |
|---|---|
"The reviewer has underestimated the importance of our work." | "We did not make the significance case clearly. The revised Introduction now states the general-chemistry problem the result solves and quantifies the gain over [prior work] in Table 1 (page 2, lines 5 to 14)." |
"This mechanistic experiment is outside the scope of our Communication." | "We agree the data would strengthen the claim. We have added the [isotope / DFT] study to the Supporting Information (Figures S12 to S15), and where [reason] limited a direct test we note the open question." |
"We have addressed this concern." | "We have added 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and HRMS for compound 4 to the Supporting Information (Figures S16 to S19, page 9, lines 4 to 11)." |
"The method is obviously general." | "We have added [N] electron-poor and heteroaromatic substrates to the scope table (new Table 2) and matched the generality claim to the demonstrated range (page 4, lines 1 to 9)." |
"Our structural assignment is correct." | "We have added the 2D NMR (HSQC, HMBC) the referee requested to confirm the assignment (Supporting Information, Figures S20 to S22)." |
The pattern that works: concede where the referee is right, do the work, point to the exact evidence, and push back only on a request that is genuinely out of scope, with a reason and an alternative. This mirrors the rebuttal-craft canon: the Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers (PLOS Computational Biology) and the more recent guidance in Nature Computational Science both put "do the work and answer every point directly" ahead of rhetoric.
The Angewandte Chemie referee culture you are writing into
Who actually reads your rebuttal
Angewandte Chemie runs single-anonymous peer review: the referees know who you are, you do not know who they are, and a working chemist as handling editor owns the decision and decides what a revision must demonstrate. Three features of that workflow shape how you write:
- The editor screens before anyone reviews. Editors triage each submission for general-chemistry importance and scope, and contributions judged unsuitable are returned without external review, which is why so many papers never reach a referee.
- By the time referees see it, importance is assumed.
The editor has already judged that the chemistry could matter across the field, so the 2 to 3 referees concentrate on whether the NMR spectra, mass spectrometry, and mechanistic evidence actually support the claimed result.
- Your first-round reports stay on file.
Angewandte is published by Wiley-VCH on behalf of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), and the reports are preserved in the submission system, so the same referees can compare your revision line by line against what they asked for.
The two pillars: importance, then characterization
The decisive feature is the importance bar. Angewandte selects Communications and Research Articles for exceptional importance to general chemistry, one of the highest novelty standards in the field, and an incremental advance on a known method or material gets desk-rejected even when the chemistry is sound. That bar is carried into revision: a referee who challenges significance is not asking for more spectra, they are asking why the result matters beyond one subdiscipline.
The second pillar is full characterization. Referees expect complete spectroscopic, analytical, and where relevant mechanistic and computational data for new compounds and key results, with specialist validation moved into the Supporting Information so the four-page Communication shows the main chemical advance quickly. A preliminary mechanistic claim, left unsupported, extends revision rounds.
What a major revision means here, and how fast the clock runs
A major revision at Angewandte carries a specific meaning and a fast clock. First decisions after review typically arrive in 2 to 4 weeks for a Communication and 4 to 8 weeks for a Research Article. A revised paper normally returns to the original referees, who read your point-by-point response first to judge whether you engaged seriously before they re-read the science. So the bar is real importance plus real data, documented to the figure, returned promptly.
How the Angewandte bar differs from Nature, Science, and JACS
Calibration helps here, because the rebuttal you would write for a different journal will miss:
- At Nature or Science, professional editors weigh a broad-significance and narrative bar. At Angewandte the handling editor is a chemist, and the pressure is twofold: is the work important enough for a general-chemistry flagship, and is every new compound fully characterized?
- At JACS, the same characterization conventions apply, but the framing leans on the significant-advance-over-prior-ACS-work test. Angewandte's emphasis sits a notch more on cross-chemistry importance.
Because the Angewandte bar is importance first and data second, the rebuttal that wins is the one that makes the significance case sharper and then backs it with numbered figures.
Key Insight
At Angewandte the importance bar is carried into revision. When a referee doubts that the work belongs in a general-chemistry flagship, more spectra answer the wrong question. The fix is a sharper significance case, quantified against the closest prior work, then backed by complete characterization in the Supporting Information.
What our Angewandte Chemie rebuttal reviews surface
In our pre-submission review work with Angewandte Chemie manuscripts, the rebuttals that stall in a second revision round share a small set of recurring weaknesses. These are the same ones referees flag at re-review, and each maps to a specific, named failure pattern in the Angewandte editorial culture, testable against your own draft response before you upload it.
Answering an importance challenge with more characterization. The most common and most expensive pattern in our Angewandte pre-submission reviews is a rebuttal that meets "the advance is incremental for a general-chemistry flagship" by adding another spectrum or another substrate to the scope table, when the referee was questioning significance, not data completeness.
Across our Angewandte rebuttal reviews, this mismatch between an importance doubt and a characterization answer is the single strongest predictor of a third round. The fix is a tightened significance paragraph in the introduction that names the cross-chemistry problem the result solves, quantified against the closest prior work.
Incomplete Supporting Information characterization. A Communication is limited to about four printed pages, so the Supporting Information carries the spectroscopic, analytical, and mechanistic load. In our pre-submission review work with Angewandte manuscripts, rebuttals that add a new compound or experiment in the main text but leave the matching NMR, HRMS, yield, and purity out of the SI consistently draw a re-review comment asking where the data are. Every new compound needs its full characterization in the SI, cited by figure number.
Over-claiming generality the revision does not establish. Angewandte referees probe whether a method works beyond the demonstrated set. In our Angewandte pre-submission reviews we routinely see a rebuttal that defends a broad generality claim in words while the revised scope table still shows only electron-rich or otherwise narrow substrates. Either add the substrates that demonstrate the claimed range, or match the claim to the data, and say which you did.
Leaving a mechanistic proposal unsupported. A preliminary mechanistic claim that a referee questioned, defended with reasoning rather than the requested control, isotope-labeling, kinetic, or computational evidence, reads as evasive at a journal that expects mechanistic rigor. In our pre-submission reviews of Angewandte rebuttals, an unsupported mechanism left in place after revision is a reliable cause of a further round. Run the experiment, add it to the SI, or soften the proposal to what the data support.
Sharpen the significance case, complete the Supporting Information, match the generality claim to the data, and support every mechanistic proposal. That four-part discipline is what separates an Angewandte rebuttal that clears one revision round from one that stalls into a second or third. Check your Angewandte Chemie point-by-point response for these patterns before you submit.
When to comply and when to push back
Situation | Recommended approach at Angewandte Chemie |
|---|---|
Referee challenges the importance for a general-chemistry flagship | Sharpen the significance case in the Introduction; quantify the gain over the closest prior work. Do not answer with more spectra. |
Referee says characterization of a compound is incomplete | Comply. Add 1H, 13C NMR, and HRMS or elemental analysis to the Supporting Information, cite by figure number. |
Referee questions a mechanistic proposal | Comply where feasible. Add the control, isotope, kinetic, or DFT study to the SI; otherwise soften the claim. |
Referee says the generality is overstated | Comply. Add substrates that show the claimed range, or match the claim to the demonstrated scope. |
Referee requests an experiment genuinely out of scope | Push back with a reason, add an alternative analysis, note the open question. |
Referee disputes the advance over prior work | Engage substantively. Add a direct, quantified comparison to the named paper rather than restating novelty. |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of Angewandte Chemie-targeted resubmissions, 2025 cohort.
Readiness check
Run the scan while Angewandte Chemie International Edition's requirements are in front of you.
See how this manuscript scores against Angewandte Chemie International Edition's requirements before you submit.
How much work an Angewandte Chemie rebuttal actually takes
Authors consistently underestimate the significance-case rewrite and the new-data effort, and overestimate the routine writing. This breakdown is about workload, not the journal's decision schedule; for the end-to-end clock, see the Angewandte Chemie review time guide.
Where the hours actually go
The single highest-leverage hour in an Angewandte rebuttal is the significance-case rewrite, and it is the hour authors skip most. Spending it well is what turns a sharper Introduction into an acceptance instead of a third round.
Rebuttal task | Where the effort goes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
Reading and clustering referee reports | Separating importance doubts from data requests | A day of careful reading, not a skim |
Rewriting the significance case | Naming the cross-chemistry problem the result solves | The highest-leverage hour, skipped most often |
Running the missing experiments | Mechanistic, computational, or scope data the referees named | The bulk of the work, often inside a few weeks |
Updating the Supporting Information | New numbered figures, yields, purity methods for every compound | Skipped most often, and it draws a re-review comment |
Writing the point-by-point replies | One reply plus a page and line reference per comment | Less than authors fear once the data and the case exist |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of Angewandte Chemie resubmissions, 2025 cohort, last updated June 7, 2026.
Honest friction: rejection on revision is real
An invitation to revise at Angewandte Chemie is not a soft acceptance. The revised manuscript and your point-by-point response go back to the original referees, and the paper can still end in rejection after re-review if the revision does not establish the exceptional importance and full characterization the referees asked for. Community estimates put acceptance at roughly 20 to 25% of submissions, and the editors return unsuitable papers without external review, so most papers that enter the funnel do not finish in the journal.
Two causes account for most post-review rejections at this stage:
- The author answered an importance challenge with more characterization instead of a sharper significance case.
- The revision left an over-claimed generality the scope table does not support.
Think twice before you resubmit if any of these are true:
- The response uses generic "we have addressed this" language with no page or line numbers.
- A referee doubted the significance and you answered with extra spectra.
- A new compound went into the main text but its characterization never reached the Supporting Information.
- The generality claim still outruns the demonstrated substrate scope.
Fixing these before resubmission is what keeps a major revision from becoming a rejection.
Red flags an Angewandte Chemie referee spots in seconds
Before you upload, scan your own rebuttal for the patterns that draw an immediate re-review comment. Each is a specific, checkable thing in your draft, not a vague quality dimension.
- A reply with no location. Any "we have revised the manuscript" with no page and line number reads as evasion the moment a referee cannot find the change.
- Spectra where a significance argument was requested. A referee doubted the importance and the reply adds another characterization figure.
This is the single most common cause of a third round at Angewandte.
- A new compound missing from the Supporting Information. Main-text data with no matching SI figure, yield, or purity method signals an incomplete revision in a four-page Communication.
- A generality claim wider than the scope table. "Broadly applicable" with only electron-rich substrates shown reads as over-claiming.
- Two answers to one shared point. The same mechanism or purity concern from two referees, answered two different ways, signals you did not reconcile the reports.
Communication vs Research Article: does the rebuttal change?
The discipline is identical, but the format constrains your options. An Angewandte Communication is the journal's flagship format, limited to roughly four printed pages, so when a referee asks for more data you face a choice:
- Route the new spectra and experiments into the Supporting Information, which has no length limit. This is the default move and works for most characterization requests.
- Convert the manuscript to a full Research Article, which carries no strict page cap and has room in the main text to absorb new work. Use this when the referees' requests genuinely belong in the body, not the SI.
The wrong move is to cram new main-text data into a Communication that no longer fits four pages. State which format you are submitting and why in the cover letter, especially if the referees' requests pushed a Communication toward Research Article length.
How does this guide go beyond the Angewandte Chemie author guidelines?
The official guidelines tell you to submit revisions through the Wiley-GDCh portal and describe the characterization expected for new compounds. They stop short of the four facts that actually change how you write every reply:
- The rebuttal is what the same handling editor and original referees read first, before they re-read the science.
- The exceptional-importance bar is carried into revision, so a significance doubt cannot be answered with more spectra.
- The four-page Communication format can force a Supporting Information or format decision.
- An unsupported mechanistic claim reliably adds a round.
The patterns above come from our pre-submission reviews of Angewandte rebuttals. They are testable against your own draft today, not theoretical concerns.
- Manusights pre-submission reviews of Angewandte Chemie-targeted manuscripts (2025 cohort)
Frequently asked questions
You upload the revised manuscript, a separate point-by-point response to the referees, and a short cover letter through the Wiley-GDCh submission portal. The response to referees is a separate document, not part of the cover letter. Your revision returns to the handling editor who managed the first round, and a major revision normally goes back to the original 2 to 3 referees, who read your response before re-reading the science. Angewandte Chemie is published by Wiley-VCH on behalf of the German Chemical Society (GDCh).
Yes, and this is the defining feature. Angewandte Chemie selects Communications and Research Articles for exceptional importance to general chemistry, one of the highest novelty bars in the field, and that bar does not relax once you are invited to revise. A referee who challenges the significance of the work wants a sharper case for why it matters across chemistry, not more spectra. Answering an importance challenge with additional characterization is the most common reason an Angewandte rebuttal stalls.
Full characterization, with specialist validation in the Supporting Information. Angewandte referees expect complete spectroscopic, analytical, and where relevant mechanistic and computational characterization for new compounds and key results. A Communication is limited to about four printed pages, so when a referee asks for more data the answer usually lives in the Supporting Information, which has no length limit, rather than the main text. Leaving the matching spectra, yield, or purity out of the SI draws an immediate re-review comment.
Yes. An invitation to revise is not an acceptance. A major revision returns to the original referees, and the paper can be rejected after re-review if the revision does not establish the exceptional importance and full characterization they asked for. Angewandte Chemie does not publish an official acceptance rate, but community estimates put it at roughly 20 to 25 percent, and the editors return unsuitable papers without external review, so the bar stays high even after you are invited to revise.
The discipline is the same but the constraints differ. A Communication is the journal's flagship format, limited to roughly four printed pages, so a referee request for more data may force a decision: route the new experiments into the Supporting Information, or convert the manuscript to a full Research Article, which has no strict page cap and more room to absorb new work in the main text. State the format you are submitting and why in the cover letter.
Sources
- Notice to Authors, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Wiley Online Library (accessed June 2026)
- Reviewer Guidelines, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Wiley Online Library (accessed June 2026)
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition journal home, Wiley Online Library (accessed June 2026)
- Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers, William Stafford Noble, PLOS Computational Biology (accessed June 2026)
- Nature Computational Science, Nature Portfolio (accessed June 2026)
- Reviews for Angewandte Chemie International Edition, SciRev (accessed June 2026)
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