Stop 6 of 8 · Daily
Review comments
An agency comment letter becomes a comment and response matrix, with the disagreements written in the tone that ends them.
Thirty-four rows
The comment letter lands as a PDF, or a Word table, or occasionally as a numbered list inside an email. Most of the comments are small: a figure reference, a missing table caption, a request for the count dates in an appendix. A handful are real, and one or two are wrong.
The document that comes back is the comment and response matrix. Four columns: number, the comment quoted as written, the response, and where the change was made. Reviewers grade it by whether they can verify each row without opening a search box.
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Every comment falls into one of three buckets, and the bucket decides who writes the response.
| Bucket | Who writes it |
|---|---|
| Agree, edit made | Claude drafts, Leila skims |
| Agree with modification | Claude drafts the change, Leila writes the reasoning |
| Disagree | Claude assembles the evidence, Leila writes the position |
The stamp rule again: the matrix is a deliverable, it goes out over Leila's name, and every technical position in it is hers. Claude gets the 26 mechanical rows out of the way so the eight real ones get a full day.
The tone for a disagreement
A response that disagrees is read by three people: the reviewer, the reviewer's supervisor, and whoever picks the file up in two years. It has one job, which is to make agreeing easy.
Four sentences, in this order. What we did. The document it follows, named: the executed scope, the agency guideline, the standard section. What we are offering, which is usually a clarification in the text, an appendix, or a priced amendment. Then a question back, if one is needed to close it.
What stays out is the whole register of being right. No restating the comment back at the reviewer, no reference to the comment being incorrect, no adjectives, no history of previous rounds. Leila writes the position sentence herself, because it is the sentence the agency will quote in a meeting she is not in.
[upload the agency comment letter] Turn this into a comment and response matrix. Four columns: comment number, the comment quoted exactly as written, response, and location of change. Fill in the comment numbers and quotes only, leave the other two columns blank, and add a fifth working column classifying each comment as edit, substantive, or possible disagreement. Do not write any responses yet.
[upload the draft report] For every comment classified as an edit, draft the response and the location of change from this report. Format for each: what changed, the new value if there is one, and the section, table or figure number where the reviewer will find it. One or two sentences. If the report does not contain the thing the comment refers to, write UNRESOLVED and say what is missing rather than guessing.
Comment [number] is [paste the comment]. Our position is [paste one sentence of Leila's position]. Assemble the support for that position from the files: the executed scope language, the standard sections, the tables and the count dates that bear on it, each with a page or table reference. Then draft a response of four sentences maximum in this order: what we did, the document it follows, what we are offering, and the question back to the reviewer if one is needed. No adjectives, no restating the comment, no reference to the reviewer being incorrect.