advmat-revision

Advanced Materials Revision (advmat-revision)

When to trigger

• Reviewer reports and an editor decision (major/minor revision, or reject) have arrived
• You need a point-by-point response and a marked-up manuscript
• Referees asked for additional characterization, benchmarking, or stability data
• The decision is a rejection and you must decide: appeal, revise-and-resubmit, or transfer
• A coauthor is drafting rebuttal language before the manuscript has actually changed

Read the decision before the reports

The editor's letter sets the terms; read it first.

• Minor revision — largely presentational or small additions; turn it around promptly and precisely.
• Major revision — substantive concerns; usually requires new data (added characterization, controls, stability). Address the science first, the prose second.
• Reject with encouragement to resubmit — treat as a major revision with a higher bar; the resubmission is judged largely on whether the core objection is truly resolved.
• Reject — decide between a reasoned appeal (only if the editor/referee made a clear factual error) and a transfer to a sibling Wiley journal (Adv. Funct. Mater., Adv. Sci., Small, AMI), which may carry the reviews with it.

Response-letter structure

• Open with thanks and a summary of the main changes and the new data added.
• Quote each referee point verbatim, then respond immediately beneath it.
• For every point: state what you changed, where (section/figure/SI number), and the evidence. "We added X" with a pointer beats a paragraph of argument.
• Where you disagree, do so with data and courtesy — concede what is fair, defend what the evidence supports, never dismiss.
• Provide a marked-up manuscript (tracked changes or highlighted) alongside the clean version.

Answering the characteristic materials objections

| Referee asks for... | Strongest response |

|----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| Proof the phase/structure is real | Add the complementary technique (SAED, EXAFS, Rietveld) they expect |

| Representative morphology | Add distributions/statistics over many particles/devices |

| Fair benchmarking | Add a matched-condition comparison table with cited SOTA references |

| Stability / durability | Add cycling/aging/operational-stability data (often to the SI) |

| Mechanism, not just correlation | Add the control or computation that isolates the mechanism |

| Reproducibility | Add batch-to-batch statistics (n, mean ± s.d.) and full recipe in SI |

| "Why not a lower-tier journal?" | Sharpen the advance framing and the broad-impact argument |

Do the experiment when the objection is fair. A rebuttal that argues around missing data rarely survives a second round.

Scope discipline in revision

• Add what the referees asked for; resist bolting on unrelated new results that reopen the length budget.
• Keep the central advance fixed — a revision that changes the headline claim reads as a new paper.
• Re-run the fit and pointer audits after adding data (see advmat-length-management, advmat-submission): new figures may push you over the page budget or break cross-references.

Checklist

• [ ] The editor's decision terms are understood before drafting
• [ ] Every referee point is quoted and answered individually
• [ ] Each response states what changed, where, and the evidence
• [ ] Requested new characterization / benchmarking / stability data actually added
• [ ] Disagreements are backed by data and phrased courteously
• [ ] A marked-up manuscript accompanies the clean version
• [ ] Length budget and all cross-references re-checked after additions
• [ ] The central advance is unchanged; scope creep avoided

Anti-patterns

• Arguing around a fair request for data instead of providing it
• Drafting rebuttal language before the manuscript and data are actually updated
• Dismissive or defensive tone toward a referee
• Silent changes not flagged in the response letter or the markup
• Adding unrelated new results that reopen length and consistency problems
• Appealing a rejection on preference when the referee raised a valid scientific gap

Output format

【Decision type】minor / major / reject-resubmit / reject → (appeal? transfer?)
【Per-point responses】R1.1 change+location+evidence / R1.2 ... / R2.1 ...
【New data added】characterization / benchmarking / stability / mechanism — list
【Disagreements】point — data-backed rationale
【Markup + clean versions】ready?  yes / fix
【Length & cross-refs re-audited】yes / fix
【Next】advmat-submission (re-preflight) or transfer to sibling journal

> Revision formats, appeal routes, and transfer options are set by Wiley and evolve — verify current options on the official Advanced Materials author page and in the editor's letter.