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How often (e.g. frequency) should one check the status of a submitted manuscript?

I understand that daily checking is a waste of time while never checking the status might also bear risks (e.g. when a manuscript is not assigned to reviewers for many months or when an editor is getting unresponsive). What frequency might be considered effective and reasonable? This refers to academics who have multiple papers in review simultaneously, not just one or two.

Wrzlprmft
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Dr.M
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    If it's been a very long time you might want to send a quick email to make sure that a response hasn't been written and then lost in the system. This is admittedly rare but it has happened to me at least once. – Tom Aug 05 '23 at 19:36
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    I think this depends a lot on the field/journal. In pure math, I think once a year is common, and somewhat more often is reasonable if you are or will be applying for jobs. – Kimball Aug 06 '23 at 01:50

3 Answers3

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First, of all, in the unlikely case that checking the status on a daily basis does not affect you, you can just do that. Depending on the system, this takes less than five seconds, so the total impact on your time efficiency is negligible.

In most cases, however, I recommend to check when the progress of the manuscript would affect your decisions. In particular check when the manuscript being stuck in a certain state would make you contact the journal. Now, these times strongly depend on the journal, so you’ll have to find these out yourself. For further reading on this, see: Is my paper under review (or similar) for too long and if yes, how should I react?

For example, taking a journal where editorial decisions take a few days and reviews three weeks on average and the editorial process is presented in fine detail, I would check:

  • After a week to ensure that the manuscript isn’t stuck in the initial check (the step that mostly filters out total bogus, bad files, etc.).
  • Two weeks after after the initial check has been completed, to ensure that the manuscript has entered peer review.
  • Every two weeks after that to react to situations such as reviewers refusing to review en masse, the manuscript being stuck with the editor again after reviewers refuse, etc.

At the end of the day, you have to compromise between how checking affects your productivity and how relevant a timely publication is to you. So, you can multiply all times by two and things still are fine.

To keep your mind off the situation, I recommend to set yourself an automated reminder, lest you succumb to checking every hour.

Wrzlprmft
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  • +1, though I would say the main issue is not how relevant a timely publication is, but checking whether it has got stuck in some uncertain state - in which case you can email the editor and this might prompt them to sort things out. – gib Aug 06 '23 at 10:25
  • @gib: I don’t see a conflict there. If timely publication is relevant to you, you want to notice problems such as the manuscript being stuck as early as possible. Otherwise, it doesn’t make much of a difference if you notice this one week late. – Wrzlprmft Aug 06 '23 at 10:30
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Never. Once you submitted your manuscript, you have done everything humanly possible. Now it is time to do productive stuff like write your next article or just relax.

Maarten Buis
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    So, if your article is stuck in some clerical limbo, you’ll never notice and just do nothing? – Wrzlprmft Aug 05 '23 at 10:19
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    @Wrzlprmft How will you be able to tell a "clerical limbo" from the little information most editorial systems give you? – Wolfgang Bangerth Aug 05 '23 at 10:53
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    @WolfgangBangerth: I don’t doubt that some editorial system tell you next to nothing, but then the initial question is void, as there is no status to check. Most systems I know actually tell you a lot. For example, I once happened to check upon my manuscript during “decision letter is being prepared”. I received the decision within minutes, but had it taken a week, I would have acted. Of course, you can never be certain, but there are situations where you can reasonably assume and get your manuscript unstuck with a polite inquiry (and sadly this does not happen only every once in a unicorn). – Wrzlprmft Aug 05 '23 at 11:20
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    These systems tend to give useful information when the editor uses it correctly. But clerical limbos are much more common when the editor ignores that system, at which point checking tells you exactly nothing. All you have to go on than is time since submission, and I know that without checking... – Maarten Buis Aug 05 '23 at 14:36
  • @MaartenBuis: In all the papers I ever submitted and reviewed, all standard operations I was a part of certainly happened through the editorial system. I have never seen such a system from the editor’s side, but I would expect that taking any process outside the system would be technically tedious, if not impossible (e.g., how would you enter a peer review into the system that you solicited and received outside the system) and also an administrative nightmare, since there are no records if an editor is suddenly unavailable or was suspected of any misconduct. – Wrzlprmft Aug 05 '23 at 15:47
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    Look at questions on this site. There is huge variability in how this type of software is used. – Maarten Buis Aug 05 '23 at 18:04
  • @MaartenBuis: I cannot remember any questions on using editorial systems as an editor. That being said, I would not be surprised if editors circumventing editorial systems were common in some field. But the point is that there are at least some fields in which editors don’t do this which renders your advice (to just to succumb to one’s fate) not generally valid. – Wrzlprmft Aug 05 '23 at 18:09
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At the initial stage, (before getting assigned to associate editor and sent out for review), probably a week or two.

  • at the onset, when firmly with administration, daily or every other day
  • when it move to editor, weekly or more
  • when it gets to associate/senior editor, fortnight or more

When it's sent out for review, (apart from status check after 4-6 months depending on the field), "it is time to do productive stuff" (@maarten-buis)

  • doing more research
  • conceptualising and writing the next paper
  • writing up grant proposals (and reports)
  • ... ...

Perhaps, it might be worthwhile getting acquainted with the typical workflow of a journal: What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? How should I interpret a particular submission status?

This might be worth noting: How to check how fast the review and publication process in a journal

semmyk-research
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    What exactly do you mean by “apart from status check after 4-6 months depending on the field”? There are journals out there where two months of nothing happening are a clear sign that something is wrong. – Wrzlprmft Aug 05 '23 at 10:23
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    Essentially, once it's sent out for review, you can wait till after 4 mths to check. At earlier stage before the manuscript is sent out to reviewers, one can check often. | I have paper under review going four months and it's perfectly normal based on the journal rank. By 'under review', it means the manuscript has been sent out to reviewers. When I, also, receive invite to review, the I get given 3 to 4 months, except it's a special issue. There're some to allocate 20 days to 2 mths forme to review. – semmyk-research Aug 05 '23 at 19:42
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    Four months is nice. Once I had waited for about 3 years and emailed. Finally, I contacted the editor in person (at a conference) and said I'll withdraw my paper nest week unless nothing happens. – Per Alexandersson Aug 05 '23 at 19:51
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    Essentially, once it's sent out for review, you can wait till after 4 mths to check. – Well, that’s my point: This does not hold in every field. Most journals soliciting reviews from me give me three weeks and they manage to get more or less that. Almost all the manuscripts I was involved in went from submission to first decision in under six weeks and none took as long as four months. – Wrzlprmft Aug 05 '23 at 19:54
  • @Wrzlprmft (you wrote ... 'Well, that's my point' ...). Absolutely, hence the answer was explicit from the onset ... '*depending on the field'. I trust we can lay this to rest. In between, even within a field or sub-field, there're differences depending on journal rank (not to even talk of nuances of review process*) – semmyk-research Aug 06 '23 at 05:41
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    @semmyk-research: If you write “4-6 months depending on the field”, this is read as “four months in some fields, six months in others” not as “one month in some fields”. – Wrzlprmft Aug 06 '23 at 09:35