Time to reviewer assignment

[anonymous guest]

Anybody know how long it should take a journal to assign reviewers to an article? I have had a piece under review for over 2 months, and the online status is still "awaiting reviewer assignment," even though authors are encouraged to suggest the potential reviewers (which I did).

Is this inordinately long for this part of the process, or am I being impatient?

Thanks!

[anon]

I think that about a month is standard, but keep in mind that sometimes journal don't update the online status. Also, this could mean that the journal assigned 2/3 reviewers right away, and is trying to get a third reviewer or waiting for a third reviewer to become available. On the other hand, I've had an article under status "awaiting editor decision" for over 2 months. Now that's annoying.

[lol]

I've got a paper going on 10 months that says "awaiting reviewer selection". I'd love to retract but I'm the last author and had little say in where it went. I won't be counting on this one to go anywhere.

[myexp]

I worked on a journal for awhile. It often took a month or two to find reviewers. A little bit of this was the result of in-office processing time. (It's not like there's someone sitting at the computer, just waiting for a paper to come in so they can immediately make a decision and get in into the pipeline.) Most of this time, though, was eaten up by the process of finding reviewers. While most people reading this probably jump at the chance to review, that's not necessarily the case for more senior people. If 3-4 potential reviews each take a week to answer an email (not unusual), and most people say no (which they do), and then you have to find 2-3 reviewers per piece... you can see how this can take forever.

[huh]

most people say no to reviewing?

[Student Ed]

I use to be a student editor, too.

-On average, we would need to ask 6ish people to get 3 reviewers (and this was at one of the "big" general journals; I imagine it's worse at less prestigious journals). A lot of this depends on the ms topic/how well the abstract is written, though.

-The ms status updates aren't as informative as people think. For example, the poster who said he/she has had a paper waiting for editor's decision for 2 months. You're probably really waiting on another reviewer, not the editor. If the editor says the ms needs 2 reviews to make a decision and 3 people agree to review it, the ms will say awaiting ed decision once 2 reviews come back, but the ed is probably going to wait on the third review.

[yeppers]

Feb 3, 2013 11:59:34 GMT -5 anon said:

Also, this could mean that the journal assigned 2/3 reviewers right away, and is trying to get a third reviewer or waiting for a third reviewer to become available.

There's a very good chance that this is what's going on. It happened to me very recently. After well over a month of the status reading "awaiting reviewer assignment," I emailed the editorial assistant to find out what was going. He told me they were trying to get a third reviewer, and that the first two had actually already submitted their reviews!

[anonymous guest again]

At one journal, I waited forever for an editor decision--after reviews were in...

I checked in with the managing editor after 6 months of total silence from submission date. She told me the reviews had been in for at least 2 months, and she emailed them to me. The two reviews were quite positive. She said they were only awaiting the editor decision. I waited about 5 more months after that, waiting, waiting...Surely with good reviews, I would get at least an R & R once this endless fiasco drew to a close...? Nope. I finally got a rejection as I was about to pull the piece.

In short, it is frustrating when a journal holds a piece captive for nearly a year, and then, despite good reviews, does not even give it an R & R. So great for those of us on the market and pre-tenure. ::)

[Alwayscheck]

I had the same problem at two journals that led to the site showing awaiting editors decision or in process for a very long time. Unfortunately, I was timid and didn't check on it. Finally, after a year in one case and nine months in the other, I learned that the delay was caused by a change of editorship and my paper getting lost in the shuffle. I now email journals every four months for status updates to be sure this doesn't happen again.

[ediny fel elbateekh]

good discussions