HPCA Author Response

Use this during HPCA's single combined rebuttal/revision window — the one period in which you respond to reviews and revise the paper together. The goal is not to win an argument; it is to arm a champion at the program-committee meeting and to make the revised paper reflect what you promise.

Triage objections by what the window can fix

Sort every review comment before writing a word:

• Deciding objection — the methodology or novelty concern the champion must overcome. Spend most of the window here.
• Fixable-and-worth-it — a missing baseline, a sensitivity study, an unclear mechanism detail the window has time to address.
• Clarification — a misreading you can correct in a sentence and reflect in the revision.
• Out of scope — a request no short window can satisfy; acknowledge honestly and scope what you can show.

Objection type	Response move	Revision move
Deciding (methodology/novelty)	Direct evidence or a tight argument	Change the paper to match
Missing baseline / sweep	A small new experiment	Add the result, mark it
Mechanism unclear	One-paragraph clarification	Tighten the description
Misreading	Point to the text	Rephrase the ambiguous line
Out of scope	Acknowledge; state what is feasible	Note the limitation

Run few, decisive new experiments

The window is short. Run a small number of new experiments that each answer a specific objection, not a scattershot of everything a reviewer mentioned. One well-chosen sweep that closes the deciding objection is worth more than five that answer minor points. Pull from the staging shelf you prepared before the window opened (see hpca-supplementary).

Write for the room and its champion

The rebuttal is read at the PC meeting, where a champion argues for the paper against the strongest objection. Write so the champion can quote you:

• Lead each response with the answer, then the evidence — not a wind-up.
• Make the deciding objection's answer unmissable and self-contained.
• Be concrete: "we added the tuned baseline; it changes the gap from X to Y" beats "we believe our baseline is fair."
• Stay civil and specific; a defensive or vague rebuttal loses the champion.

Revise diff-minimally so response and revision agree

Because reviewers see both your response and the revised paper, keep the revision a minimal, faithful diff: change exactly what you promised, and no more. A response that claims a fix the revision does not contain — or a revision that quietly rewrites beyond the promises — undercuts trust. Track each promise to a specific edit.

Window pass

1. Triage every comment (deciding / fixable / clarification / out-of-scope)
2. Pick the few decisive experiments; pull from the staging shelf
3. Draft answer-first responses; make the deciding one unmissable
4. Apply a minimal revision that matches every promise
5. Cross-check: does the revised paper contain each claimed fix?

Output format

[Deciding objection] <one>
[New experiments] <the few, each tied to an objection>
[Response map] <objection -> answer-first reply>
[Revision diff] <promise -> exact edit>
[Champion test] can a champion win the room with this? (Y/N)

Reopen the current CFP for the exact window dates and any length limit on the response — both are per-edition.