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Recently I got a paper got accepted by a well-known conference (computer science). I am about to submit a camera-ready version of the paper for the conference proceedings, trying to incorporate the comments of the reviewers.

Two out of five reviewers point a problem in my research design, which is something I have felt too, but didn't weigh in much to address at my paper. Now, before submitting the camera-ready version, I feel that I should address the opinion of the two reviewers, but that would come up as a major drawback of my research. If I do so, what are the chances that it will have a negative effect on further publication?

I am new to academia and don't have appropriate advising regarding what to do regarding this.

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In general, if you got an acceptance notice from a conference, then you are accepted. At this point, it's up to you just how much to take the reviewers into account in revising your paper.

Personally, I do recommend changes in response to every issue raised, because that will generally make you paper stronger. Even if a reviewer is dead wrong, it at least points to a place where readers can become confused. In this case, kudos to you for taking the reviewers seriously and thinking carefully about their feedback, rather than just being defensive.

Note that in some cases you may get a "conditional acceptance", and in that case you definitely have to be concerned about the reviewers' opinions of your new version. That does not seem to be the case here based on what you have written, however.

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  • I'll note that if the paper is sufficiently changed, then it needs to be reviewed again. This is often impossible for conference papers due to time constraints. You don't want the paper to seem like a new paper after revision. – Buffy Jul 27 '19 at 19:45
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    @Buffy "it needs to be reviewed again" --- while one might want it to be so, most conferences just don't follow such a policy. – jakebeal Jul 27 '19 at 19:57
  • Yes, that is why it shouldn't be so different that review is necessary. That was my point. – Buffy Jul 27 '19 at 19:59
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If the results aren’t outright wrong or buggy I wouldn’t worry about it too much. No experiment design is perfect, and anyone can find methodological issues with your approach. That said, if you feel like your results could be improved then by all means mention this in future work and then write another manuscript with corrections and improvements. That’s what scientific progress is all about!

Also please acknowledge the reviewers in the camera ready, you can even point out that it was then that suggested the improvement.

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    To emphasize I’m assuming that the reviewers didn’t find a bug in an algorithm/theorem that voids the results. That’s a very different scenario from experimental design is not good enough – Spark Jul 28 '19 at 13:13

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