EACL Author Response

Use this to work the ARR rebuttal window for a paper aimed at EACL. In ARR the response is addressed to reviewers and to the action editor who will synthesize a meta-review; that meta-review, not any single score, is what EACL's area chairs read at commitment. Reopen the current ARR author guidelines before drafting.

Read the room first

• Identify the action editor's lens: the meta-review is where reviews get weighed, so a response that moves the action editor matters more than one that merely satisfies the harshest reviewer.
• Separate blocking objections (a claim reviewers think is unsupported, a missing baseline, a reproducibility gap) from preference comments (a different framing, an extra dataset a reviewer would like). Spend the word budget on the blocking set.
• EACL's single cycle raises the stakes of this window: for an edition like EACL 2027 there is no next cycle to defer to, so a fixable objection should be fixed now if the experiment fits the window.

Objection-to-move table

Reviewer objection pattern	Strong response move	Weak response move
"Claim broader than evidence"	Narrow the claim in text; point to the exact table	Argue the claim is "obviously" fine
"Missing tuned/LLM baseline"	Add it if runnable in-window; else scope the claim	Dismiss the baseline as unfair
"Not enough languages"	Add the runnable subset; state the residual in Limitations	Assert results "would generalize"
"Possible contamination"	Report an overlap check or decontamination result	Ignore or hand-wave
"Significance unclear"	Report a test / CIs over seeds	Cite a single-run delta

Drafting rules

• Lead each reply with the concrete change ("We added X; see revised Table 2"), then the reasoning — reviewers skim.
• Do not introduce unsupported new claims or results you cannot show; a promise you cannot substantiate reads worse than an honest limitation.
• Keep the tone factual and non-defensive; the action editor is reading for whether you engaged, not whether you "won."
• Respect anonymity: no links that deanonymize, no "as we said in our NAACL paper."

Runnable-experiment discipline

For each requested experiment:
  fits_window?  = can it finish and be written before the response deadline?
  changes_claim? = would the result actually alter a reviewer's objection?
  -> run only if fits_window AND changes_claim
  -> otherwise: acknowledge, scope the claim, and record it in Limitations

Do not start a sprawling experiment that cannot land in time; a half-reported result invites a sharper objection.

Flagging a deficient review

• If a review is unsupported, off-topic, or hostile, you may flag it to the action editor through the proper ARR channel rather than fighting it point-by-point in the public reply.
• Document the specific deficiency (factual error, no justification) — flagging is for genuine process failures, not for a low score you dislike.

When not to respond hard

• If the reviews reveal a structural gap no in-window experiment can close, the honest move may be to accept the outcome and plan a later venue — but remember EACL's calendar: the next *ACL opportunity is a different conference, so eacl-topic-selection and eacl-workflow should drive that call.

Output format

[Response plan] <blocking objections, ranked>
[Action-editor angle] <what the meta-review needs to hear>
[In-window experiments] <run / defer, with reason>
[Reviewer replies] <one concise reply per reviewer>
[Deficient-review flags] <if any, with documented reason>
[Route decision] <respond-and-commit / revise-for-later-venue>