JACS Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Wins (2026)
How to write a point-by-point response to reviewers for the Journal of the American Chemical Society, where a characterization request means new data in the Supporting Information, not a discussion paragraph, and the revision clock is short.
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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 JACS response to reviewers is a point-by-point rebuttal for chemistry authors revising after review, submitted as a separate file through the ACS submission system, where the Associate Editor judges whether you met the journal's full-characterization and significant-advance bar.
For every change, include a page and line number reference so a reviewer can find it. The single rule that decides most chemistry rebuttals: when a reviewer says characterization is incomplete, answer with the missing spectra or analysis in the Supporting Information, not a discussion paragraph, and return the revision inside the short ACS deadline.
Start with the JACS revision readiness check before you submit, or work through this guide by hand. For broader cluster context, see the JACS journal overview.
What does a JACS response to reviewers require?
The Manusights JACS rebuttal scan. This guide tells you what the Associate Editor and reviewers look for in a JACS rebuttal. The scan tells you whether YOUR response document passes that check before you upload it through the ACS submission system.
We reviewed JACS' author guidelines, ACS characterization requirements, ACS revision guidance, and SciRev community reports, then compared them to our own pre-submission reviews of JACS-targeted manuscripts. Use this guide to pressure-test the response document before you submit the revision. We do not train AI on your manuscript and delete it within 24 hours.
Three things make a JACS rebuttal different from a generic one.
First, it is data-led: reviewers at JACS push on whether the chemistry claim is fully supported by characterization, scope, and mechanistic evidence. A reply that adds a missing NMR spectrum or HRMS measurement moves the decision; a reply that adds prose does not.
Second, the revision clock is short and enforced. ACS gives 14 to 30 days depending on the decision, and a late return becomes a new submission.
Third, the Communication-versus-Article format shapes what you can do, because a 2,200-word Communication has little room to absorb the new experiments a reviewer requests.
Our methodology for this guide: we read JACS' current author guidelines and ACS new-compound characterization requirements, checked the revision deadlines against ACS revision guidance, cross-referenced SciRev community reports, and compared all of it to our own pre-submission reviews of JACS rebuttals. Every claim below traces to a primary source or our review corpus.
Element | What JACS expects | What reviewers flag at re-review |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Cover letter, then point-by-point under Reviewer 1, 2, 3 | Free-form prose answering all comments together |
New data | Missing spectra, HRMS, or analysis in the Supporting Information | "We have clarified this in the text" with no new data |
Characterization | 1H and 13C NMR plus HRMS or elemental analysis for new compounds | Discussion paragraph where a spectrum was requested |
Specificity | Page and line number for every manuscript change | "We have updated the manuscript" with no location |
Timing | Return inside the 14 to 30 day deadline | A late return treated as a new submission |
Consistency | Same answer to the same point across all reviewers | Different framing for Reviewer 1 vs Reviewer 3 |
Source: JACS author guidelines and ACS new-compound characterization requirements, accessed June 2026.
The copyable JACS rebuttal template
Reviewers at JACS read your point-by-point response before they re-read the paper, so a clean, scannable structure does 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, and give the page and line number for every change.
Dear Dr. [Associate Editor],
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript the manuscript title
(JACS-[ID]). We are grateful to the reviewers for their careful
reports. In response, we have added the [1H/13C NMR / HRMS] data
the reviewers requested to the Supporting Information, expanded the
[mechanistic / control] experiments, and revised Figure [N]. 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: "Characterization of compound 4 is incomplete; no
13C NMR or HRMS is provided."
Response: We agree. We have added 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and HRMS
(accurate mass) for compound 4, with the spectra in the Supporting
Information (Figures S12 to S15). The Experimental Section now
reports the isolated yield and purity. See page 9, lines 4 to 11.
Comment 1.2: "The mechanistic claim is not supported by the
current data."
Response: We have added the [control / isotope-labeling / kinetic]
experiment requested (new Figure 3c) and revised the mechanistic
language accordingly. Changed text appears on page 6, lines 18
to 24.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 2
Comment 2.1: "The advance over [closest recent ACS paper] is not
clearly established."
Response: We have added a direct comparison to [reference] and a
new entry to Table 1 quantifying the improvement in [selectivity /
yield / scope]. Revised text is on page 2, lines 9 to 16.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 3
Comment 3.1: "Purity of the bulk material is not documented."
Response: We have added [elemental analysis / quantitative NMR]
establishing homogeneity, with the data and method in the
Supporting Information (Table S3). See page 14, lines 1 to 5.
We believe the revised manuscript now meets the journal's
characterization and significance standards, and we look forward
to your decision.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author, on behalf of all authors]The template carries the four tokens that JACS reviewers actually scan for: a cover letter to the Associate Editor, a Reviewer 1 / 2 / 3 structure, explicit action language ("we have added", "we have revised", "we have expanded"), 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 reference the specific figure, table, or Supporting Information file you changed. This is the single most-cited rebuttal failure at JACS and across ACS journals.A reviewer who has to hunt for your new spectrum reads it as evasion. A reviewer who can click straight to page 9, lines 4 to 11, and then to Figures S12 to S15 in the Supporting Information, 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 always name the Supporting Information figure or table number when the new characterization lives there rather than in 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 Associate Editor and reviewers scan many of these documents. A rebuttal where comment and reply blur together costs you the attention you need to land a chemistry argument.
The distinction matters more at JACS than at a wordier journal, because your strongest replies point to numbered Supporting Information figures and spectra. A reviewer who can follow the comment-to-reply-to-spectrum chain at a glance is easier to satisfy.
Tone calibration: how to phrase the hard replies
The reviewers see your tone across every comment. A defensive reply to a reviewer who asked for a control experiment reads worse than the missing control itself. Calibrate.
Bad (defensive or vague) | Better (substantive and gracious) |
|---|---|
"The reviewer has misunderstood our characterization." | "We did not present the data clearly; we have added the 13C NMR and HRMS for compound 4 to the Supporting Information (Figures S12 to S15) and cite them on page 9." |
"This control experiment is outside the scope of our paper." | "We agree the control would strengthen the claim. We have added it as new Figure 3c, and where [reason] prevented a direct test we note the open question in the Discussion." |
"We have addressed this concern." | "We have added the requested elemental analysis establishing purity (Supporting Information, Table S3, page 14, lines 1 to 5)." |
"The advance is obvious from the data." | "We have added a direct comparison to [closest recent ACS paper] in Table 1 quantifying the improvement in selectivity (page 2, lines 9 to 16)." |
"Our assignment is correct." | "We have added the 2D NMR (HSQC, HMBC) the reviewer requested to confirm the assignment (Supporting Information, Figures S20 to S22)." |
The pattern that works: concede where the reviewer is right, run the data, point to the exact spectrum or figure, 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 JACS reviewer culture you are writing into
JACS review is owned by an Associate Editor, a working chemist with subfield expertise, who decides what a revision must demonstrate. Before review even begins, the editors screen each submission for chemical significance and scope, which is why many papers never reach external review.
For papers that clear the editorial screen, the Associate Editor recruits reviewers with matching chemistry expertise. SciRev community data, based on author reports rather than publisher statistics, puts the first round near three reports and a little over a month on average.
Treat that community timing as planning context, not as a promise. The durable point for the rebuttal is that reviewers compare your revised paper against the comments they made, and a response with exact data locations makes that comparison easier.
The decisive feature is the characterization bar. ACS requires that a new compound's identity be documented with NMR for at least two nuclei, normally 1H and 13C, plus either HRMS accurate mass or elemental analysis. Authors also need to report yield and purity with the method used to measure them.
Primary FID files are encouraged for new and key compounds, and spectra belong in the Supporting Information. This is why a JACS rebuttal lives or dies on data: when a reviewer questions a structure or a purity claim, the journal's own rules tell them exactly what evidence they can demand, and a discussion paragraph is not on the list.
A major revision at JACS carries a specific meaning and a short clock. ACS allots 14 days for a minor revision, 30 days for a major revision of an Article, and 21 days for a major revision of a Communication. A manuscript returned after the deadline is handled as a new submission with a new receipt date.
If the revised paper is sent for re-review, the point-by-point response is the map reviewers use before they re-read the science. So the bar is real data, documented to the spectrum, returned fast.
How this compares to the rest of the field matters for calibration. A rebuttal at Nature or Science faces a broad-significance and narrative bar with professional editors. At JACS, the Associate Editor is a chemist and the pressure is concrete: is the compound fully characterized, is the purity documented, and is the advance real against the closest recent ACS work.
The closest neighbors are the rest of the ACS family, Angewandte Chemie, and Chemical Science, where similar characterization conventions apply. Because the JACS bar is data, not prose, the rebuttal that wins is the one that turns every reviewer concern into a numbered figure.
Key Insight
At JACS the reviewers can name the exact data they want, because ACS guidelines specify it: 1H and 13C NMR plus HRMS or elemental analysis, with purity documented. A rebuttal that answers a characterization request with a paragraph is answering the wrong question.
What our JACS rebuttal reviews surface
In our pre-submission review work with JACS manuscripts, the rebuttals that stall in a second revision round share a small set of recurring weaknesses. These are the same ones reviewers flag at re-review, and each maps to a specific, named failure pattern in the JACS editorial culture, testable against your own draft response before you upload it.
Answering a characterization request with a discussion paragraph. The most common and most expensive pattern in our JACS pre-submission reviews is a rebuttal that meets "characterization of compound X is incomplete" with a sentence added to the text rather than the missing 13C NMR or HRMS in the Supporting Information. ACS guidelines tell the reviewer exactly what data to expect, so prose cannot substitute.
Across our JACS rebuttal reviews, this mismatch between what the reviewer requested and what the author delivered is the single strongest predictor of a third round.
Over-claiming a significant advance the revision does not establish. JACS reviewers weigh the advance against the closest recent ACS papers. In our JACS pre-submission reviews, we routinely see a rebuttal that asserts novelty in words while the revised figures and tables still do not show a quantified improvement over the named prior work. Add the direct comparison, a new Table entry on selectivity, yield, or scope, before you claim the advance, and let the data carry the argument.
Supporting Information gaps after the revision. A rebuttal that adds a new compound or new experiment in the main text but leaves the matching spectra, yield, and purity out of the Supporting Information draws an immediate re-review comment. In our pre-submission review work with JACS manuscripts, responses that route new characterization into the body without updating the numbered SI figures consistently add a round. Every new compound needs its spectra, its accurate mass, and its purity method in the SI, cited by figure number.
Inconsistent answers across reviewers. Because the Associate Editor and any returning reviewers read your revision against the prior comments, a rebuttal that frames a purity or mechanism concern one way for Reviewer 1 and another way for Reviewer 3 reads as evasive.
In our JACS pre-submission reviews we frequently find a characterization concern raised by two reviewers and answered with two different data sets or two different justifications. Reconcile every overlapping comment to a single, consistent answer before submission.
Run the missing data, route it to the Supporting Information, quantify the advance, and reconcile across reviewers. That four-part discipline is what separates a JACS rebuttal that clears one revision round from one that stalls into a second or third. Check your JACS point-by-point response for these patterns before you submit.
When to comply and when to push back
Situation | Recommended approach at JACS |
|---|---|
Reviewer says characterization of a compound is incomplete | Comply. Add the 1H, 13C NMR, and HRMS or elemental analysis to the Supporting Information, cite by figure number. |
Reviewer requests a control or mechanistic experiment | Comply where feasible. Run it, add the figure, cite the page and line. |
Reviewer questions a structure assignment | Comply. Add 2D NMR (HSQC, HMBC) or X-ray to confirm; cite the SI. |
Reviewer asks for an experiment genuinely out of scope | Push back with a reason, add an alternative analysis, note the open question in the Discussion. |
Reviewer questions purity or yield | Comply. Report yield and purity with the method (elemental analysis or quantitative NMR) in the SI. |
Reviewer disputes the advance over prior ACS work | Engage substantively. Add a direct, quantified comparison to the named paper rather than restating novelty. |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of JACS-targeted resubmissions, 2025 cohort.
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How much work a JACS rebuttal actually takes
Authors consistently underestimate the new-data effort and the short clock, and overestimate the writing effort. This breakdown is about workload, not the journal's decision schedule; for the end-to-end clock, see the JACS review time guide.
Rebuttal task | Where the effort goes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
Reading and clustering reviewer reports | Finding the core characterization or significance concern | A day of careful reading, not a skim |
Running the missing experiments | Acquiring spectra, HRMS, purity data the reviewers named | The bulk of the work, often inside a 21 to 30 day window |
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 exist |
Reconciling overlapping comments | Same answer for every reviewer who raised a point | Easy to miss when reports overlap |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of JACS resubmissions, 2025 cohort, last updated June 6, 2026.
Honest friction: rejection on revision is real
An invitation to revise at JACS is not a soft acceptance. The paper can still end in rejection after re-review if the new data do not establish the full characterization and significant advance the reviewers asked for.
Because JACS is selective and screens heavily before review, treat the invitation as a narrow opportunity rather than a guarantee. In our review work, most post-review failures at this stage trace to one cause: the author answered a characterization request with words instead of spectra. The second most common is an over-claimed advance the revised figures do 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 reviewer asked for a spectrum or a control and you answered with a paragraph. A new compound went into the main text but its data never reached the Supporting Information. The same characterization comment from two reviewers got two different answers. Fixing these before resubmission is what keeps a major revision from becoming a rejection.
Red flags a JACS 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 cannot find the change.
- Prose where a spectrum was requested. A reviewer asked for 13C NMR, HRMS, or a control, and the reply only adds a sentence.
This is the single most common cause of a third round at JACS.
- A new compound missing from the Supporting Information. Main-text data with no matching SI figure, yield, or purity method signals an incomplete revision.
- An unsupported novelty claim. "Our advance is clear" with no quantified comparison to the closest recent ACS paper reads as over-claiming.
- Two answers to one shared point. The same purity or mechanism concern from two reviewers, answered two different ways, signals you did not reconcile the reports.
Communication vs Article: does the rebuttal change?
The discipline is identical, but the format constrains your options. A JACS Communication is capped at about 2,200 words with roughly five graphics and no section headings. When a reviewer asks for more data, you face a choice: route the new spectra and experiments into the Supporting Information, where there is no length limit, or convert the manuscript to a full Article.
An Article uses labeled sections and a 250-word abstract limit, with room in the main text to absorb new experiments. State in the cover letter which format you are submitting and why, especially if the reviewers' requests pushed a Communication toward Article length.
The wrong move is to cram new main-text data into a Communication that no longer fits the word cap. The right move is to use the SI or change the format deliberately.
How does this guide go beyond the JACS author guidelines?
The official guidelines tell you to submit revisions through the ACS submission system and list the characterization data a new compound needs. They do not tell you how a rebuttal is read in practice: the revision clock is 14 to 30 days, a characterization request means data in the Supporting Information rather than a paragraph, and a Communication's 2,200-word cap can force a format decision mid-revision.
Those facts change how you write every reply. The patterns above come from our pre-submission reviews of JACS rebuttals, and they are testable against your own draft today, not theoretical concerns.
- Manusights pre-submission reviews of JACS-targeted manuscripts (2025 cohort)
Frequently asked questions
You upload the revised manuscript, a separate point-by-point response document, and a short cover letter through the ACS submission system using your ACS ID. The point-by-point response is a separate file, not part of the cover letter. If the revision is sent for re-review, reviewers will read your response before they re-read the paper.
The clock is short. ACS allots 14 days for a minor revision of an Article or Communication, 30 days for a major revision of an Article, and 21 days for a major revision of a Communication. Past the deadline a returned manuscript is treated as a new submission with a new receipt date, which can cost you priority on a competitive result. Request an extension through the ACS submission system before the deadline if new experiments will run long.
New data, not a paragraph. JACS requires that a new compound's identity and purity be documented with 1H and 13C NMR plus either HRMS accurate mass or elemental analysis, and that yield and purity be reported with the method used. If a reviewer flags incomplete characterization, add the missing spectra or analysis to the Supporting Information and point to it.
Yes. An invitation to revise is not an acceptance. A revised paper can be rejected after re-review if the revision does not establish the significant advance and full characterization the reviewers asked for. The post-review bar stays high even after you are invited to revise.
The discipline is the same but the constraints differ. A Communication is capped at about 2,200 words with roughly five graphics and no section headings, so a reviewer who asks for more data may force a format decision: add the data to the Supporting Information, or convert the manuscript to a full Article. An Article has labeled sections and a 250-word abstract limit, with more room to absorb new experiments in the main text. State the format you are submitting and why in the cover letter.
Sources
- JACS Author Guidelines, ACS Publications (accessed June 2026)
- Characterization of New Compounds, Journal of the American Chemical Society (accessed June 2026)
- Guide for ACS Publications journal manuscript submission, ACS Publications (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 rebuttal letter, Nature Computational Science (accessed June 2026)
- Reviews for Journal of the American Chemical Society, SciRev (accessed June 2026)
- ACS Open Science OA pricing, American Chemical Society (accessed June 2026)
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