  In this note, we give item-by-item responses to the criticisms raised in [TZ]
by Tehrani ad Zinger on our paper [LR]. We illuminate the main ideas and
contributions in [LR] in section 2, itemize the responses to issues raised in
[TZ] and conclude that we have provided a complete proof of the degeneration
formula in our published paper [LR] and its more detailed versions in arXiv. In
[TZ], the authors made an effort in comparing the methods and ideas in [LR] vs
[IP-1] [IP-2], but their criticisms on [LR] are based on their own lack of
sufficient understanding of [LR].
