Feb 18, 2022 | Scholarly publishing
There is something of an air of mystery as to what actually happens to your manuscript once you’ve pressed that “submit” button. It seemingly goes off into cyberspace and you are left playing the waiting game.
These days, if you’ve submitted to a journal via an online submission system, you will be able to track its progress to some extent as you will generally be able to see what stage it’s at. The names of these stages can, however, seem fairly vague and almost worse than no information at all.
So let’s translate them. There are many different submission systems and the stages a manuscript goes through during peer review does differ system to system (and, indeed, journal to journal), so for the purposes of this post we’re going to look at the most common stages of the most common submission site: ScholarOne (formally Manuscript Central).
First Steps
Initially your manuscript will go through stages such as “Awaiting Admin Checklist” and/or “Awaiting Editor Assignment” depending on how new submissions are initially checked on the journal. These stages tend to be moved through fairly swiftly as they are just the editorial team checking that your submission is suitable for peer review and then deciding which of the editors will be responsible for it during the process.
Awaiting Reviewer Selection
This is the first stage of the peer-review process and your manuscript will be here until the assigned Editor has selected some suitable experts to invite to review.
Once enough reviewers have been selected, the manuscript will move on to the next stage. If only one reviewer agrees to review and all the others decline the invitation, however, your manuscript may well return to this stage while the Editor selects more. So if you log in to check on progress several weeks after submission and find your manuscript at this stage, it doesn’t necessarily mean that no action has been taken.
Awaiting Reviewer Invitation
This means that potential reviewers have been selected, but have yet to be invited. Manuscripts quite often return to this stage if not enough of the invited reviewers accepted the invitation so further invitations need to be sent. It’s quite common for editors to select a lot of reviewers, but only invite a few at a time.
Awaiting Reviewer Assignment
This rather ambiguous stage is when reviewers have been invited, but we are waiting for the required number to agree to review. In other words, at this point, the ball is squarely in the reviewers’ court!
In an ideal world, enough of the invited reviewers will agree to review and your manuscript will move on to the next stage. In reality, however, it is quite normal for invited reviewers to be unavailable and for your manuscript to return to one of the earlier stages a couple of times.
Awaiting Reviewer Scores
This is the stage that the editorial team will be striving to get your manuscript to as swiftly as possible. If your manuscript is at this stage, then enough experts have agreed to read and evaluate it and we just need to wait for the reviewers to return their comments so that a decision can be taken.
Once through this stage, your manuscript will move on to a stage such as “Awaiting Recommendation” and/or “Awaiting Decision” and it generally won’t be long before a decision is sent to you.
So That’s It?
That’s it. There are, of course, many things that can cause delays to the process, but the majority of manuscripts move from one stage to the next fairly swiftly.
Feb 18, 2022 | Scholarly publishing
The question peer-review administrators get asked more than any other is “How long will the peer review take?”.
Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to this – you might as well be asking us how long a piece of string is. Yes, most journals will know how long it takes on average and, yes, all journals will have a timeframe in which they aim to reach a decision; but this is all very subject to change and delays regularly occur.
Securing reviewers
The number of reviews an editor needs to reach a decision varies journal to journal, but the standard number is two. When we invite an expert to review a paper, we are almost always asking them to give up their time and expertise for free – and they are not always able (or, for that matter, willing) to do so.
It is therefore quite usual for the first potential reviewers who are invited to be unavailable. And often the second. And sometimes the third. This naturally causes delays – especially during periods when everybody’s busy such as end of term, or over the summer when everybody’s on holiday.
Late reviews
Once the required number of reviewers have agreed to read and comment on your manuscript, we must then wait for them to submit their reviews. Reviewers will always be given a timeframe in which to return their review; how long they are given depends on the journal and the subject area. For example, a journal publishing up-to-the-minute scientific research will probably only allow the reviewers one or two weeks; while a humanities journal may give them several months.
However long the reviewer is given, there is very little the journal can do to ensure that they stick to the deadline, other than to send them reminders. For journals using a peer-review system such as ScholarOne Manuscripts or Editorial Manager, reminders will be sent out automatically as the deadline approaches.
Sadly, it is not unheard of for a reviewer to agree to comment on a paper but never return a review resulting in the editorial team having to find a replacement reviewer.
Getting a third opinion
More often than not, the reviewers will have similar views on whether a paper is worthy of publication; however in any field there is bound to be differences of opinion on occasion and this can result in an editor receiving one review recommending acceptance with only minor revisions and another recommending an outright rejection.
In cases such as these, it may be necessary to solicit another opinion. This is never ideal as it means that the whole process of inviting reviewers then waiting for them to return their comments has to start all over again.
Don’t worry, you won’t have been forgotten
The beauty of the online submission system is that it is virtually impossible for a manuscript to slip through the cracks entirely, however long it may have been delayed. Although you will only be able to see what stage it’s at (and it may have appeared to be stuck at that stage for a frustratingly long time); the editorial team will have details of precisely what action has been taken, warning notices to let us know that the manuscript has been at one stage for too long, and will be working hard behind the scenes to keep the delays to a minimum.
But peer review doesn’t always take ages
No, not at all. In the majority of cases, the peer-review process will move swiftly and you will be sent a decision within a few weeks of submission. We don’t want your manuscript to get delayed any more than you do – our job is to do everything we can to get the latest research published as swiftly as possible.
