| name | itcs-author-response |
| description | Use to operate under the reality that ITCS has no rebuttal or author-response phase — pre-empting reviewer objections inside the submission, then handling the post-decision situation (camera-ready window on accept, or rerouting and reusing the reviews on reject) since there is no revise-and-resubmit. |
ITCS Author Response
The defining fact of this skill: ITCS has no rebuttal and no author-response phase. Following
theory-conference norms, the program committee forms its reviews and reaches accept/reject
without any input from you in between (see
itcs-review-process). There is also no Major Revision and
no revise-and-resubmit. So "author response" at ITCS is not a rebuttal-writing task — it is
(1) doing the rebuttal's work inside the submission, before the deadline, and (2) handling the
situation after the decision lands. Both are covered here.
Part 1 — The rebuttal you write in advance (in the paper)
At a rebuttal venue you would hold arguments in reserve to answer reviewers. At ITCS there is no
reserve turn, so every such argument must be in the submitted PDF. Pre-empt the three objections
an ITCS PC reliably raises:
- "Is the model trivial or all-powerful?" Answer with an anchoring result in the
introduction — a separation or surprising possibility showing the model is neither empty nor
everything (see
itcs-writing-style).
- "Is this actually new?" Answer with a delta-first related-work paragraph naming the
closest prior model and what it did not ask; search the ITCS/ICS back-catalog hardest, since
that is where "already asked" hides (see
itcs-related-work).
- "Why should the community care?" Answer with a concrete payoff — a connection, a
reframing, an application sketch — on the first page.
Also disarm the objections you can foresee about your own paper:
- State scope and limitations yourself. A candidly owned gap is a strength at ITCS; the same
gap discovered by a reviewer, with no rebuttal to contextualize it, is a weakness.
- Prove the load-bearing lemma in full, in the PDF's appendix — a reviewer who gets stuck on a
deferred proof cannot ask you to clarify (see
itcs-reproducibility).
- Add a "why not the obvious approach" remark where a reviewer might think your problem is
easy; this is the single most common unspoken objection to a new-model paper.
Part 2 — After the decision
On accept
- Move to
itcs-camera-ready: switch to lipics-v2021,
de-anonymize, complete LIPIcs metadata, hit the production deadline.
- Reviews may still contain requests or corrections even without a rebuttal round. Fold
reasonable fixes into the camera-ready — a corrected claim, a missing citation, a clarified
definition — using the extra latitude the (unlimited) LIPIcs length allows.
- Register a presenter; consider a Graduating Bits talk if a coauthor is near graduation.
On reject
There is no resubmission to a later ITCS round this year (single annual cycle), so the move is
to use the reviews, not to answer them:
- Mine the reviews for the real objection. Since they were written without expecting a reply,
they tend to be candid. Identify whether the paper was judged not novel enough (a framing
problem) or not correct/complete (a proof problem) — the fix differs sharply.
- Reroute by the diagnosis. If reviewers admired the depth but not the novelty, a depth venue
(STOC/FOCS/SODA) may fit; if they doubted the novelty of the question, rethink the framing
before resubmitting anywhere (see
itcs-topic-selection).
- Fix proof gaps before the next submission, and update the arXiv/ECCC/ePrint full version so
the durable record is correct.
- Do not email the PC to argue the decision. There is no appeal-by-rebuttal culture; a polite
clarifying question to the chairs is the ceiling, and rarely changes an outcome.
What "author response" is NOT at ITCS
| Not this | Because |
|---|
| A rebuttal document answering reviewers | There is no author-response phase |
| A point-by-point response letter | There is no Major Revision / R&R round |
| A second submission to a later round | ITCS runs one annual cycle |
| An appeal to overturn a reject | No appeal-by-rebuttal culture; reroute instead |
Output format
[ITCS response mode] pre-submission pre-emption / post-accept / post-reject
[Pre-emption] anchoring result? novelty delta? payoff? scope owned? load-bearing proof in PDF? (yes/no each)
[Post-accept] camera-ready fixes folded in? presenter registered? Graduating Bits considered?
[Post-reject] objection diagnosed (novelty vs correctness)? reroute target? full version corrected?
[Next action] <single clearest step>
