International Journal of Molecular Sciences Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Wins (2026)
How to write a point-by-point response to reviewers for International Journal of Molecular Sciences, where MDPI's fast 10-day major-revision clock and a molecular-mechanism bar shape every reply you write.
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International Journal of Molecular Sciences at a glance
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What makes this journal worth targeting
- IF 4.9 puts International Journal of Molecular Sciences in a visible tier — citations from papers here carry real weight.
- Scope specificity matters more than impact factor for most manuscript decisions.
- Acceptance rate of ~~30% means fit determines most outcomes.
When to look elsewhere
- When your paper sits at the edge of the journal's stated scope — borderline fit rarely improves after submission.
- If timeline matters: International Journal of Molecular Sciences takes ~~45 days to first decision. A faster-turnaround journal may suit a grant or job deadline better.
- If OA is required: gold OA costs €2,000-2,500. Check institutional agreements before submitting.
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 International Journal of Molecular Sciences response to reviewers is a point-by-point rebuttal uploaded to MDPI's SuSy system against a short clock: a major revision often gives you about 10 days, a minor revision about 5. The Academic Editor owns the decision and the manuscript normally gets at least two reviews.
Open with a brief note to the editor, answer under Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 2, and cite a page and line number to reference every change. Treat a reviewer's molecular-mechanism question as a request for the experiment, not a wording fix.
Start with the IJMS rebuttal readiness check before you submit, or work through this guide by hand. For broader cluster context, see the IJMS journal overview.
What does an International Journal of Molecular Sciences response to reviewers require?
The Manusights IJMS rebuttal scan. This guide tells you what the Academic Editor and reviewers look for in an International Journal of Molecular Sciences rebuttal. The scan tells you whether YOUR response letter passes that check before you upload it to MDPI SuSy submission system.
In our pre-submission review work with International Journal of Molecular Sciences manuscripts, the patterns below are the same ones reviewers flag at re-review. We have reviewed manuscripts and rebuttals targeting IJMS and peer MDPI molecular-sciences journals. We do not train AI on your manuscript and delete it within 24 hours.
Three things make an IJMS rebuttal different from a generic one.
First, the clock is short: MDPI commonly gives authors roughly 10 days for a major revision and 5 days for a minor revision, so the revision has to be planned before the decision arrives rather than started after it.
Second, the decision is Academic-Editor-led. An Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board Member, or Special Issue Guest Editor integrates the reports and decides what the revision must contain.
Third, despite the journal's high volume and fast turnaround, the IJMS reviewer culture still holds a real molecular-mechanism, methodological rigor, and reproducibility bar, so a fast round is not a low bar.
Our methodology for this guide: we reviewed MDPI's editorial-process documentation, checked it against SciRev and community reports on IJMS, and compared it to our own pre-submission reviews of IJMS rebuttals. We avoid hard pricing or rate claims here because MDPI pricing and journal metrics can change; check the live IJMS page before making budget decisions.
Element | What IJMS expects | What reviewers flag at re-review |
|---|---|---|
Timing | Revision uploaded within the 10-day (major) window | Rushed reply that skips the requested experiment to beat the clock |
New data | New experiment or reanalysis for a mechanism challenge | "We have clarified this in the text" with no new figure |
Specificity | Page and line number for every manuscript change | "We have updated the manuscript" with no location |
Tone | Substantive on the molecular claim, gracious on style | Defensive about the fast round being "not a serious review" |
Scope | Reply stays inside molecular-sciences relevance | Adding clinical or applied claims to dodge the molecular question |
Consistency | Same answer to the same point across both reviewers | Different sample-size justification for Reviewer 1 vs Reviewer 2 |
Source: MDPI editorial-process documentation and IJMS author instructions, accessed June 2026.
The copyable International Journal of Molecular Sciences rebuttal template
Both reviewers read your rebuttal at re-review, and they have only a few days to do it, so a clean, scannable structure is doing real work. Copy this skeleton, then replace the bracketed text with your own changes. Keep the reviewer text and your reply in two distinct fonts or colors.
Dear Academic Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript the manuscript title
(ijms-[ID]). We are grateful to the reviewers for their careful
reports. In response, we have added [new experiment / new analysis],
revised Figure [N], and clarified the [methods / statistical analysis]
section. A point-by-point response follows; reviewer 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 claim that protein X regulates pathway Y is not
supported by the current data."
Response: We agree. We have added the [knockdown / mutant / rescue]
experiment requested (new Figure 2c) and revised the mechanistic
language. Changed text appears on page 7, lines 18 to 24.
Comment 1.2: "The sample size and statistical test are unclear."
Response: We have clarified that n = [N] biological replicates per
group and added the test and effect size to the Methods. See page 14,
lines 3 to 9, and Supplementary Table 3.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 2
Comment 2.1: "The molecular relevance of the finding is not made
explicit in the Introduction."
Response: We have added a paragraph stating the molecular mechanism
the result speaks to. Revised text is on page 2, lines 5 to 12.
Comment 2.2: "The data availability statement does not name a
repository."
Response: We have deposited the dataset at [repository, accession
number] and updated the Data Availability statement. See page 21,
lines 1 to 4.
We believe the revised manuscript now addresses each reviewer
comment and we look forward to your decision.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author, on behalf of all authors]The template carries the four tokens that reviewers actually scan for: a note to the Academic Editor, a Reviewer 1 / Reviewer 2 structure, explicit action language ("we have added", "we have revised", "we have clarified"), and a page and line reference for every change.
The page-and-line rule: cite the location of every change
State the exact page and line number for each manuscript revision, and reference the specific figure, table, or supplementary file you changed. This is the single most-cited rebuttal failure at IJMS and across MDPI molecular-sciences journals.A reviewer who has to hunt for your change reads it as evasion. A reviewer who can click straight to page 7, lines 18 to 24, and see the new rescue experiment 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 is in a Supplementary figure rather than the main text.
Reviewer-text vs author-response typography
Make the reviewer's words and your reply visually distinct. Put each reviewer comment in bold or a colored text box, and keep your response in plain regular text directly beneath it.
The Academic Editor and reviewers scan these letters under a tight re-review clock. A rebuttal where comment and reply blur together costs attention you cannot afford to lose.
The distinction is not cosmetic at IJMS specifically. A clean two-font or two-color layout is the difference between a document a reviewer can follow in one pass and one they skim and bounce back for another round.
Tone calibration: how to phrase the hard replies
Reviewers and the Academic Editor see your tone across every comment, and returning reviewers can re-read the whole exchange. A defensive reply to Reviewer 1 is visible to Reviewer 2. The most damaging tone at IJMS is treating the fast MDPI round as if it were not a serious review. Calibrate.
Bad (defensive or vague) | Better (substantive and gracious) |
|---|---|
"The reviewer has misunderstood our mechanism." | "We did not explain the mechanism clearly; we have rewritten the Methods on page 9 to make the molecular pathway explicit." |
"This experiment is outside the scope of our paper." | "We agree this would strengthen the work. Because [reason], we have instead added [alternative molecular assay] on page 12 and noted the open question in the Discussion." |
"We have addressed this concern." | "We have added the requested knockdown control (new Figure 3b, page 11, lines 2 to 8)." |
"The review was fast, so this point is minor." | "We appreciate the reviewer's careful read and have added the specific molecular experiment to resolve it; see page 6, lines 14 to 20." |
"Our result is obviously correct." | "We have added the statistical test the reviewer requested (Methods, page 15); the effect remains significant (p = [value])." |
The pattern that works: concede where the reviewer is right, do the molecular work, point to the exact change, and push back only on a request that is genuinely outside the molecular scope, with a reason and an alternative.
The International Journal of Molecular Sciences reviewer culture you are writing into
IJMS is Academic-Editor-led: the decision sits with an Editor-in-Chief, an Editorial Board Member, or the Guest Editor of a Special Issue, all working academics rather than full-time professional editors.
After submission, the Academic Editor runs the first assessment, then external review normally uses at least two reviewers. MDPI asks reviewers to return a first-round report in about 7 to 10 days, far shorter than the windows common at society journals. That speed is the defining feature you are writing into. MDPI tracks every version of your manuscript in SuSy, and its editorial process says revised manuscripts may or may not be sent to reviewers depending on reviewer requests and editor judgment.
By default, reviewers who requested major revision or recommended rejection are sent the revised manuscript. That means your rebuttal may be read fast by reviewers who already know the paper, against the molecular claim they questioned the first time.
A major revision at IJMS carries a specific meaning. When a reviewer challenges the molecular mechanism, that a regulation, binding, localization, or causation claim is not supported, a major revision usually means the experiment, not a hedge added to the Discussion.
Authors often get roughly 10 days to respond. So the bar is real molecular work, documented precisely, returned fast, not a thin wording change submitted to beat the clock.
How this compares to the rest of the field matters for calibration. A response to reviewers at a flagship like Nature or Cell faces a novelty bar and a slower, multi-month revision clock, while a society journal gives you weeks to run new experiments.
IJMS sits differently: broad molecular-sciences scope, high acceptance volume, and a genuine molecular-rigor bar enforced on a fast clock. The trap is reading the speed and volume as a low bar and writing a thin, fast reply.
Editors evaluate whether your rebuttal moved the molecular science, not whether you turned it around quickly.
Key Insight
The IJMS clock is the constraint, not the bar. A 10-day major-revision window does not lower the molecular-mechanism standard; it just means you must plan the experiment the moment the decision lands, not after.
What our International Journal of Molecular Sciences rebuttal reviews surface
In our pre-submission review work with International Journal of Molecular Sciences submissions, the rebuttals that stall into a second major-revision round share a small set of recurring weaknesses. These are the same ones reviewers flag at re-review. In our analysis of IJMS rebuttals, each weakness below maps to a specific, named failure pattern in the editorial culture, and each is testable against your own draft response before you upload it.
Treating the fast MDPI round as a low bar and replying superficially. The most common and most expensive pattern in our IJMS pre-submission reviews is a rebuttal written to beat the 10-day clock rather than to satisfy the reviewer.
Across our IJMS rebuttal reviews, authors who read the journal's speed and high volume as a sign that reviewers will wave the paper through tend to answer substantive methods and statistical analysis comments with one-line acknowledgments. This mismatch between the effort the comment deserves and the effort the reply shows is the single strongest predictor of another round.
Missing the mechanistic experiment a reviewer asked for. When an IJMS reviewer questions whether a claim of regulation, binding, or causation is supported, they want the control or the figure, not a softened sentence.
In our pre-submission review work with IJMS manuscripts, the rebuttals that fail answer a request for a knockdown, a rescue, or a dose-response with a hedge added to the Discussion. The 10-day window makes this tempting, because a new experiment is hard to fit in, but adding text where a molecular experiment was requested does not move the decision.
Inconsistent answers across reviewers. Because reviewers may see the revised manuscript and response again, a rebuttal that frames the same sample size or statistical analysis concern one way for Reviewer 1 and another way for Reviewer 2 reads as evasive.
In our IJMS pre-submission reviews we routinely find a reproducibility or methods concern raised by both reviewers and answered with two different numbers or two different justifications. Reconcile every overlapping comment to a single, consistent answer before submission.
Generic acknowledgment without a page or line number. A rebuttal that says "we have revised the manuscript accordingly" forces a reviewer working a 3-day deadline to hunt for the change in a long revised file. In our pre-submission review work with International Journal of Molecular Sciences manuscripts, responses that omit the location of each figure, table, or supplementary change consistently draw a re-review comment asking where the change is, which adds a round you do not have time for under the two-round ceiling.
Plan the molecular experiment, document the location, reconcile across both reviewers, and respect the clock without rushing the science. That four-part discipline is what separates an IJMS rebuttal that clears one revision round from one that stalls into a second. Check your IJMS point-by-point response for these patterns before you submit.
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When to comply and when to push back
Situation | Recommended approach at IJMS |
|---|---|
Reviewer requests an experiment that tests the molecular mechanism | Comply. Run it, add the figure, cite the page and line. This is the core bar. |
Reviewer requests an experiment that is genuinely outside molecular scope | Push back with a reason, add an alternative molecular assay, note the open question in the Discussion. |
Reviewer flags a missing control | Comply. This is the highest-leverage fix at a molecular-rigor journal; do the control. |
Reviewer questions sample size, replicates, or statistics | Comply. Add the biological-replicate count, the test, and the effect size to Methods. |
Reviewer asks for clearer molecular relevance | Comply. State the mechanism explicitly; IJMS rejects work disconnected from molecular biology. |
The 10-day window is too short for the experiment | Request an extension in SuSy; MDPI grants them. Do not skip the experiment to beat the clock. |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Molecular Sciences-targeted resubmissions, 2025 cohort.
How much work an International Journal of Molecular Sciences rebuttal actually takes
Authors consistently underestimate the new-data effort and overestimate the writing effort, and the short MDPI clock makes that miscalculation expensive. This breakdown is about workload, not the journal's decision clock; for the end-to-end decision schedule, see the IJMS review time guide.
Rebuttal task | Where the effort goes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
Reading and clustering reviewer reports | Finding the one molecular concern behind the comments | Half a day of careful reading, not a skim |
Running new experiments or reanalysis | The actual bar for a mechanism challenge | The bulk of the work, often more than 10 days, so plan early |
Writing the point-by-point replies | One reply plus a page and line reference per comment | Less than authors fear once the data exist |
Reconciling overlapping comments | Same answer for both reviewers who raised a point | Skipped most often under time pressure, and it shows |
Uploading the right files to SuSy | Tracked manuscript versions plus the separate response file | One careful pass through MDPI SuSy submission system, easy to fumble in a rush |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Molecular Sciences resubmissions, 2025 cohort, last updated June 7, 2026.
Honest friction: rejection on revision is real
A major-revision invitation at IJMS is not a soft acceptance. The paper can still end in rejection after re-review if the new data do not resolve the molecular concern.
Most failures at this stage trace to one cause: the author answered a request for a mechanistic experiment with wording changes, often because the 10-day clock made the experiment feel impossible. The second most common is an inconsistent answer to a point raised by multiple reviewers.
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 reviewer asked for a molecular experiment and you answered with text. The same comment from both reviewers got two different answers. The rebuttal was written to beat the clock rather than to satisfy the molecular-rigor bar. Fixing these before resubmission is what keeps a second round from becoming a rejection, and with only two major-revision rounds allowed, a wasted round is expensive.
Red flags an International Journal of Molecular Sciences reviewer 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 reviewer on a 3-day clock cannot find the change.
- Text where a molecular experiment was requested. A reviewer asked for a knockdown, rescue, or control and the reply only adds a sentence to the Discussion.
This is the single most common cause of a second round at IJMS.
- Two answers to one shared point. The same sample-size or statistics concern raised by both reviewers, answered two different ways, signals you did not reconcile the reports.
- A "the review was fast" subtext. Any reply that treats the MDPI round as not a serious review reads worse than any data gap to the working academics who reviewed it.
How does this guide go beyond the International Journal of Molecular Sciences author guidelines?
The official MDPI guidelines tell you to upload a point-by-point response in SuSy, follow IJMS formatting requirements, and respond within the revision deadline. They do not tell you how to make the response easy for an Academic Editor and returning reviewers to verify.
The practical difference is this: the 10-day clock means you must plan the experiment before the decision lands, and a mechanism challenge means new data rather than clarification. Those facts change how you write every reply. The patterns above come from our pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Molecular Sciences rebuttals, and they are testable against your own draft today.
- Manusights pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Molecular Sciences-targeted manuscripts (2025 cohort)
Frequently asked questions
MDPI commonly gives authors about 10 days for a major revision and about 5 days for a minor revision. Extensions can be requested, but the default clock is short by journal standards. Plan the revision before the decision lands, because 10 days is not enough time to run a new mechanistic experiment from scratch and write the rebuttal.
Upload the response as a separate file in the SuSy submission system at the official submission portal. Open with a short note to the Academic Editor summarizing the major changes, then list each comment in order under Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 2, quote the reviewer text, state the exact change you made, and give the page and line number in the revised manuscript. Keep reviewer text and your reply visually distinct so the Academic Editor and reviewers can scan it fast.
For a major revision questioning the molecular mechanism, usually yes. A reviewer who flags that a claim of regulation, binding, or causation is not supported wants the experiment, not a softened sentence. IJMS is a high-volume MDPI journal, but reviewers still hold a molecular-rigor bar, so treating the fast round as a low bar and replying superficially is the common failure pattern.
Yes. A major-revision invitation is not an acceptance. MDPI says revised manuscripts may or may not be sent back to reviewers depending on reviewer requests and editor judgment. If the new data do not resolve the mechanistic concern, the paper can be rejected after re-review.
The Academic Editor makes the decision, and the manuscript normally gets at least two peer reviews. Reviewers who requested to see the revision can access the latest version in SuSy, so keep every overlapping reply consistent and make the response easy to scan.
Sources
- The MDPI Editorial Process (accessed June 2026)
- MDPI Information for Authors (accessed June 2026)
- MDPI Guidelines for Reviewers (accessed June 2026)
- International Journal of Molecular Sciences, MDPI (accessed June 2026)
- Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers, William Stafford Noble, PLOS Computational Biology (accessed June 2026)
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- IJMS MDPI Submission Guide: Requirements, Formatting and What Editors Want
- How to Avoid Desk Rejection at International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2026
- International Journal of Molecular Sciences Review Time 2026: Time to First Decision and Publication
- Major Revision at International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS): What It Means
- Is Your Paper Ready for IJMS? Understanding MDPI's Largest Molecular Sciences Journal
- International Journal of Molecular Sciences Submission Process
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