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I recently wrote my first paper and submitted it to the solar energy journal in late August. About two weeks later, its status changed to “under review” and an email has sent to me with a link to a page where I could track the progress of my submission. The page shows “2+” reviewers were invited to review my manuscript, and “2+” reviewers have accepted the invitation. In mid-October, “2” reviewers completed their review. Since then, neither the manuscript status nor the number of reviewers who completed their review has changed. It’s still “under review” with “2” completed reviews, and the date of the “Last review activity” is still the same as before (mid-October).

The journal says the average review speed takes up to 8.4 weeks, making me feel worried and also confused about whether I should send an email to the editor or wait longer.

Many Thanks.

alithearchitect
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  • It will not hurt to ask the editor what the review status is. Sometimes it does take longer for a reviewer to perform their reviews. A nudge from the editor at this point would not be unwarranted. – Vladhagen Dec 01 '22 at 17:45
  • @AntonMenshov Unfortunately it doesn't. – alithearchitect Dec 01 '22 at 18:05
  • I think that the word average is very missleading in the provided link. Note that the link says "The average number of weeks it takes for an article to go through the editorial review process for this journal, including standard and desk rejects. ". Now, a desk reject only takes few hours/maybe couple days. If half of the submissions are desk-rejected, this means that the average time of actual reviews is actually 16+ weeks. If 3/4 of the submissions are desk rejected, the actual average review speed is 32+ weeks... Without knowing the ration reviews/desk rejections, the average means nothing. – Nick S Dec 01 '22 at 18:33
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    If the canonical question on this topic does give you the answer, you might want to pin-point what is significantly different in your situation and on which aspect you want people answering to focus on. – Anton Menshov Dec 01 '22 at 19:03

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This is an instance of a frequently asked question about the review process at journal X. We can sympathize with your feelings, but we do not know what is happening at journal X. There are many things that can go wrong, but a good editorial team deals with them being usually supported by good software. You can write a polite letter, when it has been more than twice the average waiting time, but do not expect a substantive answer, because e.g. a referee is not responding or has asked for an extension because of personal reasons, or has begged off on personal reasons and a replacement needed to be found, ... and in those cases, they are not at liberty to share the causes with you. Very occasionally, someone does mess up the editorial flow such as forgetting to ping a reviewer who has forgotten about the paper. In this case, a ping by the authors does make a difference. However, any time you ask, you incommode the person that makes a decision on your work, so you do not want to prejudice them.

TLTR: Wait a bit more, and then write a very polite letter to the editor. Twice the advertised waiting time seems to me to be a good time to start thinking about a polite question to the editor, expressing your feelings of worry.

Thomas Schwarz
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