I am a Mathematics PhD student, number theory background. My research article is under review in a journal since 1 year 4 months. Since I am a PhD student, I am expected to have publications in time. Over this interval, I have sent 3 reminders to the editor to inquire about the status of the article.
The first reminder was after 6 months and I politely asked about the status of the article and the editor said my article is in review process and they will let me know once the referee report comes in. Then at the end of 10 months, I gave another reminder to the editor to ask about the status of the article and the editor promised to talk with the referee.
As of now, it has been almost 15 months since I submitted the article. It seems to me that the editor is very polite and does reply everytime. I guess the referee is a very busy person and that is why it might have been taking long time.
My question is: How often one can/should I remind the editor and in turn the editor the referee? Should I make another inquiry? What can the editor do in such cases if the refree is taking a long time?
The worst outcome would be that the referee rejects the paper (which is possible) and I will have lost such a long time. The other case might be, that the referee already read the article and probably found it meaningful at first glance so they are taking more time recap it. Another possible case is that the referee still didn't look into the paper and is waiting to look into it.
