Writing Rebuttals

Introduction

The rebuttal is the only opportunity you have to respond to paper reviews.
Typically, you should write a rebuttal regardless of your paper scores. However, if your scores are very poor (e.g. many weak rejects or even strong rejects), then it may be better to withdraw the paper, revise it, and resubmit to another conference.

Typically you will have at most one week to craft your rebuttal.
The target audience of the rebuttal include both the reviewers and the AC who decides whether your paper will be accepted.

Starting off

Start with a brief introduction thanking the reviewers.
Here, you can point out things the reviewers liked about your paper and then say you will improve it even further following their suggestions.

Responding to experiments

If the reviewers ask for additional experiments, it is best to try to add them to the rebuttal.
However the rebuttal is typically limited to only one page so don't add unsolicited experiments.
If you don't have time, then just discuss what you think the results will be and promise to include the experiments in the next revision.

Responding to novelty

Lazy reviewers who just want to reject your paper will claim your idea is not sufficiently novel.
If they have references to prior work, discuss how your work is different and better than prior work.
Otherwise, all you can do is say you're happy to discuss any prior work.

Maximizing space

The rebuttal is typically limited to one page. If you need more space, there are some latex tricks you can use.

• Minimize the size of each reference. Just use: {last_name} et al.. {title}. In {conference_abbreviation} '22.
• Minimize the size of section headers by using \subsubsection{} or \paragraph{}.

Resources

• How we write rebuttals by Parikh et al.