Astronomy & Astrophysics Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Wins (2026)
How to write a point-by-point response to reviewers for Astronomy & Astrophysics, where one single referee usually holds the decision, the editor adjudicates conflicts, and the CDS data deposit is mandatory.
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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: A response to reviewers for Astronomy & Astrophysics is a point-by-point rebuttal to a single referee, decided by an EDP Sciences scientific editor who can request a second referee opinion to adjudicate a conflict. Open with a cover letter to the editor, then answer each referee comment in order.
Quote the referee text in full, and make every page and line number a reference the editor can cite for each change. Treat any uncertainty or systematics critique as a request to re-run the analysis, not to reword, and deposit any data the referee or editor requires with the CDS.
Start with the Astronomy & Astrophysics rebuttal readiness check before you submit, or work through this guide by hand. For broader cluster context, see the Astronomy & Astrophysics submission guide and the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal overview.
What does an Astronomy & Astrophysics response to reviewers require?
The Manusights A&A rebuttal scan. This guide tells you what the scientific editor and the single referee look for in an Astronomy & Astrophysics rebuttal. The scan tells you whether YOUR response letter passes that check before you upload it to the Nestor system. In our pre-submission review work with Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscripts and peer astronomy venues, the patterns below are the same ones the referee flags at re-review.
How this guide was produced: we reviewed A&A's own editorship and author-information documentation, and the sources used include the journal's editorship statement, its general author guidelines, and its paper-organization page, checked against our pre-submission reviews of A&A-targeted revisions, so every claim below traces to a primary source or our review corpus. We do not train AI on your manuscript and delete it within 24 hours.
Three things make an Astronomy & Astrophysics rebuttal different from a generic one. First, it is usually a single-referee exchange: A&A's own editorship statement says it "usually uses only one referee for any given paper," so your whole revision can turn on one person, and your point-by-point response is the entire case you get to make.
Second, the scientific editor owns adjudication. If you and the referee conflict, the recourse is an editor-requested second referee opinion, not a referee you can demand be swapped.
Third, A&A carries hard, checkable revision gates a generic guide never mentions: a mandatory CDS/VizieR data deposit when the paper relies on publishable data tables, a language-editing step that only opens after the science is judged sufficient, and the journal's structured-abstract and section conventions.
Element | What Astronomy & Astrophysics expects | What the referee flags at re-review |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Editor cover letter, then point-by-point answering every numbered referee comment | Free-form prose answering several comments together |
New analysis | Re-run the analysis for uncertainty or systematics critiques | "We have clarified this in the text" with no re-derived result |
Specificity | Section and line number for every manuscript change | "We have updated the manuscript" with no location |
Data | CDS/VizieR deposit (ascii table + readme.txt) when required | A Data Availability promise with no accession reference |
Tone | Substantive on the astrophysics, calm on the disagreements | Demanding a new referee instead of answering the concern |
Format | aa.cls LaTeX, structured abstract, max 6 keywords intact | Reformatting that breaks the macro package on resubmission |
Source: A&A editorship statement and author-information documentation (aanda.org), accessed June 2026.
How do I build the copyable Astronomy & Astrophysics rebuttal template?
The referee reads your response alongside the revised manuscript, so a clean, scannable structure is doing real work. Copy this skeleton, then replace the bracketed text with your own changes. Keep the referee text and your reply in two distinct fonts or colors, and give a section and line number for every change.
Dear Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript the manuscript title
(AA/[ID]). We are grateful to the referee for the careful report.
In response, we have re-run [the analysis / the error budget],
revised Figure [N], deposited the [catalog / table] at the CDS,
and clarified the [observations / systematics] section. A
point-by-point response follows; the referee's comments are in
bold and our replies in plain text, with revised-manuscript
section and line numbers given for every change.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Referee
Comment 1: "The reported detection is not robust to the adopted
systematic-error model."
Response: We agree. We have re-run the analysis with the
alternative systematic model the referee describes (new Sect. 3.2,
Table 2) and the detection persists at [N]-sigma. Changed text
appears on page 6, lines 14 to 28.
Comment 2: "The selection function is not propagated into the
final uncertainties."
Response: We have propagated the selection function through the
Monte Carlo error budget and updated Fig. 4 and the quoted
uncertainties. See Sect. 4.1, page 9, lines 3 to 11.
Comment 3: "The observational tables are not available."
Response: We have deposited the full table at the CDS (ascii
format with an accompanying readme.txt) and added the VizieR
accession reference to the Data Availability statement. See
page 12, lines 1 to 4.
We believe the revised manuscript now addresses each point and
we look forward to your decision.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author, on behalf of all authors]The template carries the four tokens the referee actually scans for: a letter to the editor, a numbered Comment / Referee structure, explicit action language ("we have re-run", "we have revised", "we have deposited"), and a section and line reference for every change.
Why does the section-and-line rule decide whether the referee re-reviews favorably?
State the exact section and line number for each manuscript revision, and reference the specific figure, table, or appendix you changed. This is the single most-cited rebuttal failure at A&A and across astronomy.
A referee who has to hunt for your change reads it as evasion. A referee who can jump straight to Sect. 3.2, lines 14 to 28, and see the re-run detection finishes faster and re-reviews more favorably.
Never write "we have addressed this in the manuscript" without a location. Use the line numbers from the revised file, not the original, and note when a change lives in an appendix or a CDS-deposited table rather than the main text. Because A&A revisions often return to the same referee, a precise pointer is a courtesy that buys goodwill on a decision held by one reader.
How should I make the referee text and my reply visually distinct?
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 scientific editor and the referee scan the letter against the revised LaTeX. A rebuttal where comment and reply blur together costs you attention you need on a single-referee decision. The distinction is not cosmetic. A clean two-font or two-color layout is the difference between a document the referee can follow comment by comment and one where your strongest re-run analysis gets lost in a wall of prose.
How do I calibrate tone on the hard replies?
The single referee sees your tone across every comment, and the scientific editor reads the whole exchange when deciding whether to adjudicate a conflict. A combative reply does not just annoy the referee; it invites the editor to read your science less generously. Calibrate.
Bad (defensive or vague) | Better (substantive and calm) |
|---|---|
"The referee has misunderstood our method." | "We did not explain the reduction clearly; we have rewritten Sect. 2 on page 4 to make the procedure explicit." |
"This systematic is outside the scope of our paper." | "We agree this strengthens the result. We have re-run the error budget with the systematic included (Sect. 4.1, page 9); the conclusion holds." |
"We have addressed this concern." | "We have re-run the analysis with the alternative model (new Sect. 3.2, page 6, lines 14 to 28); the detection persists at [N]-sigma." |
"Please assign a different referee." | "We respectfully ask the editor to adjudicate; we have addressed the substantive concern in Sect. 3.2 and quantified the disagreement." |
"Our detection is obviously real." | "We have added the significance test the referee requested (Sect. 3.3); the false-alarm probability is [value]." |
The pattern that works: concede where the referee is right, re-run the analysis, point to the exact section and line, and push back only on a request that is genuinely out of scope, with a physical reason and an alternative test. Asking for a new referee instead of answering the concern is the fastest way to lose a single-referee decision.
The Astronomy & Astrophysics referee culture you are writing into
Astronomy & Astrophysics runs an unusual single-referee model on purpose. Its editorship statement is explicit: "We usually use only one referee for any given paper, except when a paper deals with more than one subfield of astronomy." The editors tested dual-referee systems and abandoned them because conflicting recommendations and processing delays made them impractical. So unless your paper straddles two subfields, you are writing for one reader, and your point-by-point response is the whole argument.
The scientific editor sits above the referee. An associate editor proposes acceptance to the Editor-in-Chief, who holds ultimate responsibility for what the journal publishes. When the first report recommends acceptance after revision, A&A's editorship statement describes a logical floor on that path: a first report graded B or C, recommending acceptance after revision, "cannot, on logical grounds, be followed by a report on the revised version that would recommend rejection."
That floor is real leverage, and the way to use it is to make the requested changes cleanly, not to remind the referee of the rule. A&A also runs a Letters track on fast-track terms, so the same point-by-point discipline applies on a tighter clock if your revision is a Letter, and within a strict 4 page limit on the main body.
A&A has published open access under EDP Sciences' Subscribe-to-Open model since 2022, so the revision itself should not be framed around a separate article-charge decision. The binding issue in the response letter is whether the referee can verify the science, not whether the author can justify the publishing model.
If you genuinely disagree, the recourse is structured. A&A states it "usually requests a second referee opinion in case of conflict between author and first referee," and authors may suggest independent referees when suitable reviewers are hard to find. You ask the editor to adjudicate; you do not demand the referee be replaced. Referees stay anonymous unless they waive it, so write every reply as if the person who raised the comment will read your tone directly, because they will.
Two A&A revision gates sit outside the science and trip authors who ignore them. First, data deposit is mandatory for the data presented and discussed in the article and needed to reproduce the results. Observational tables go to the Strasbourg CDS for hosting in VizieR, in ascii format with a readme.txt describing each table, and the accession reference goes into the manuscript.
Second, language editing is offered only after the science clears: A&A "offers help, but only after the scientific content of a manuscript has been judged to be sufficient for publication," and the editor can send back a poorly written submission for an initial revision before review. The manuscript itself must be in aa.cls LaTeX2e, with a structured abstract and at most six keywords from the standard astronomical lists.
Key Insight
At A&A your revision usually hinges on one referee and one scientific editor. The B/C-grade logical floor protects you only if you make the requested changes; arguing for a new referee instead of re-running the analysis throws that protection away.
How this compares to peer venues matters for calibration. The Astrophysical Journal (AAS, IOP) also uses a scientific-editor workflow, while Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (OUP) leans harder on observation- or simulation-grounded work and uses its own editorial board.
A&A's distinguishing features are the EDP Sciences scientific-editor adjudication, the CDS/VizieR deposit at Strasbourg, and the science-first language-editing gate. See the Astrophysical Journal response to reviewers and MNRAS response to reviewers guides for the AAS and OUP contrasts.
What our Astronomy & Astrophysics rebuttal reviews surface
In our pre-submission review work with Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscripts, the rebuttals that stall into a second or third refereeing round share a small set of recurring weaknesses. These are the same ones the single referee flags at re-review, and because A&A returns the revised paper to that same referee, a weak first reply follows you into the next round.
In our analysis of A&A-targeted revisions, each weakness below maps to a specific, named failure pattern, and each is testable against your own draft response before you upload it.
Arguing with the referee instead of strengthening the astrophysical conclusion.
The most common pattern in our A&A pre-submission reviews is a response that defends the interpretation in prose when the referee asked for a stronger physical case. When the single referee questions whether your detection supports the claimed astrophysics, adding a paragraph to the Discussion does not move the decision.
Adding the significance test or the comparison with theoretical predictions does. Across our A&A rebuttal reviews, rhetorical defense of the conclusion, with no new analysis, is the strongest predictor of a rejection on revision.
Conceding an uncertainty point but not re-running the analysis.
A&A's referees are unusually focused on uncertainties, systematics, and selection biases, and a rebuttal that agrees the referee is right about a systematic but leaves the statistical analysis unchanged reads as worse than silence.
In our pre-submission reviews we routinely find a response that says "we agree the selection function matters" with no re-derived error budget and no updated figure. If you concede the point, re-run the Monte Carlo or the fit with the systematic included and report the new number.
Missing the CDS/VizieR data deposit the referee or editor requires. Because A&A makes data deposit mandatory, a rebuttal that promises data availability without an accession reference stalls at the data-editor check. In our pre-submission review work with Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscripts, responses that add a Data Availability statement but never deposit the ascii table plus readme.txt at the CDS consistently draw a re-review comment asking where the data is, which adds a round. Deposit the table, get the VizieR accession, and cite it in the letter.
Asking for a new referee instead of asking the editor to adjudicate. A&A's recourse on conflict is an editor-requested second opinion, not an author-demanded referee swap. In our A&A pre-submission reviews, the responses we flag hardest open by questioning the referee's competence rather than addressing the methodology concern. The same letter, rewritten to ask the scientific editor to adjudicate while quantifying the disagreement, reads as the work of an author the editor can trust to revise in good faith.
Re-run the analysis, deposit the data, cite the exact section, and ask the editor to adjudicate rather than demand a new referee. That discipline is what separates an A&A rebuttal that clears one refereeing round from one that stalls or gets rejected on revision. Check your Astronomy & Astrophysics point-by-point response for these patterns before you submit.
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When should I comply and when should I push back?
Situation | Recommended approach at Astronomy & Astrophysics |
|---|---|
Referee questions whether a systematic-error model changes the result | Comply. Re-run the analysis with the alternative model, report the new significance, cite the section and line. |
Referee asks for a test that is genuinely out of scope | Push back with a physical reason, add an alternative analysis, note the open question in the Conclusions. |
Referee flags missing uncertainty or selection-bias propagation | Comply. Propagate it through the error budget and update the figure and quoted uncertainties. |
Referee asks for the observational data | Comply. Deposit the ascii table plus readme.txt at the CDS and add the VizieR accession to the manuscript. |
Referee questions the comparison with theory | Comply. Add the model comparison; A&A wants observations connected to astrophysical interpretation. |
You believe the referee is simply wrong | Ask the scientific editor to adjudicate, quantify the disagreement with evidence, accept refinements. |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics-targeted revisions, 2025 cohort.
How much work does an Astronomy & Astrophysics rebuttal actually take?
Authors consistently underestimate the re-analysis effort and overestimate the writing effort. This breakdown is about workload, not the journal's decision clock; for the end-to-end schedule see the Astronomy & Astrophysics submission guide.
Rebuttal task | Where the effort goes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
Reading the single referee report carefully | Finding the one core concern, usually on uncertainty or interpretation | An afternoon of careful reading, not a skim |
Re-running the analysis or error budget | The actual bar for an A&A revision | The bulk of the work, often a week or more |
Depositing data at the CDS | ascii table plus readme.txt, VizieR accession | A day if you have never done it, less once you have |
Writing the point-by-point replies | One reply plus a section and line reference per comment | Less than authors fear once the re-run exists |
Co-author sign-off on the revised LaTeX | All authors confirm the aa.cls file compiles and the science is accurate | One pass before it goes back to the referee |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics revisions, 2025 cohort, last updated June 6, 2026.
Honest friction: rejection on revision is real
A revision invitation at Astronomy & Astrophysics is not a soft acceptance. The revised manuscript and your point-by-point response may return to the referee, and the paper can still end in rejection after re-review if the referee's core concern is not resolved.
The B/C-grade logical floor protects an "accept after revision" report from flipping to a rejection, but a vaguer first report carries no such floor, and a referee who asked for a re-run and got prose can recommend against the paper. Most rejections at this stage trace to one cause: the author conceded an uncertainty or systematics error in the letter but did not re-run the analysis to fix it. The second most common is arguing the astrophysical interpretation instead of strengthening it with the requested test.
Think twice before you resubmit if any of these are true. The response uses generic "we have addressed this" language with no section or line numbers. The referee asked for a re-run and you answered with text. You conceded a systematic but left the error budget unchanged. You promised data availability but never deposited the table at the CDS. The letter opens by questioning the referee instead of asking the editor to adjudicate. Fixing these before resubmission is what keeps a second round from becoming a rejection.
What red flags does an Astronomy & Astrophysics referee spot 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 section and line number reads as evasion the moment the referee cannot find the change.
- Prose where a re-run was requested. The referee asked for the analysis with the systematic included and the reply only adds a sentence to the Discussion.
This is the single most common cause of a rejection on revision.
- A conceded point with no new number. "We agree the selection function matters" with no re-derived uncertainty signals you did not do the work.
- A missing CDS accession. A Data Availability statement with no VizieR reference will stall at the data-editor check.
- A demand for a new referee. Opening with "please reassign" instead of "we ask the editor to adjudicate" reads worse than any data gap on a single-referee decision.
How does this guide go beyond the Astronomy & Astrophysics author guidelines?
The official A&A guidelines tell you to submit a revised manuscript and a response to the referee, and they document the CDS deposit and the aa.cls format. They do not tell you what the revision feels like when one referee has already formed a view of the paper.
Four facts change how you write every reply: you are usually writing for a single referee, the revision may return to that same reader, a B/C grade carries a logical floor against rejection, and your recourse on conflict is an editor-requested second opinion rather than a referee swap. The patterns above come from our pre-submission reviews of A&A-targeted revisions, and they are testable against your own draft today.
- Manusights pre-submission reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics-targeted manuscripts (2025 cohort)
Frequently asked questions
Open with a short cover letter to the scientific editor summarizing the major changes, then give a point-by-point response that quotes each referee comment in full and states the exact change you made with a section and line or page reference in the revised manuscript. Because A&A usually sends a paper to one referee, you are typically answering a single referee, so address every numbered comment in order and never skip one.
Usually yes. A&A's own editorship statement says it uses only one referee for any given paper, except when a paper deals with more than one subfield of astronomy. When the first report recommends acceptance after revision, the same referee normally reviews the revised manuscript. This single-referee model means your whole revision can hinge on one person, so a comprehensive, respectful point-by-point response carries more weight than at a multi-reviewer journal.
You cannot demand a new referee, but A&A states it usually requests a second referee opinion in case of conflict between the author and the first referee, so the right move is to ask the scientific editor to adjudicate rather than to argue the referee should be replaced. Address the referee's substantive concern, especially on uncertainty and systematics, with re-run analysis.
It is mandatory for A&A authors to publish the data presented and discussed in an article and needed to reproduce the results. Tables of observational data go to the Strasbourg CDS for hosting in VizieR, in ascii format with a readme.txt file describing each table, and the accession reference is included in the manuscript. If a referee or editor asks you to deposit data or a catalog, treat it as a checked, fixable revision item, not a formality, because the data editors verify it before the paper is finalized.
Yes. A revision invitation is not an acceptance. The revised manuscript and your point-by-point response go back to the referee, and the paper can still be rejected if the referee's core concern, often an uncertainty or systematic-error critique, is not resolved. Most rejections on revision trace to one cause: the author conceded an error in the response letter but did not re-run the analysis to fix it. The second most common is arguing the astrophysical interpretation instead of strengthening it with the requested test.
Sources
- Editorship and peer review at A&A (accessed June 2026)
- A&A author information, general guidelines (accessed June 2026)
- A&A paper organization (accessed June 2026)
- A&A Nestor submission system (accessed June 2026)
- Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Response to Reviewers, William Stafford Noble, PLOS Computational Biology (accessed June 2026)
- How to write a response to reviewers, Nature Computational Science editorial guidance (accessed June 2026)
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