We get a considerable amount of questions, where the asker submitted a paper to some journal and gets impatient because it appears to be stuck at a some stage:
- What to do when you have not received a response three weeks after submitting minor revisions?
- Article awaiting reviewer invitation 6 months after submission
- What should I do, as my submitted paper is still under review after 1 year?
- Is it okay to inquire about the status of a paper when the online submission system shows no update three months after submission?
- Three month delay in reviewing the revision of paper, Editor doesn't even answer the email
- What to do when two months after submitting a major revision, its status is still "Editor Assigned"?
- Is it rude to remind an editor about a manuscript submission still waiting for an invitee after 2 months?
- Will it be ok if I politely enquire about a paper which is under review for 8.5 months
(Note that this selection is probably above average in quality. I remember many bad questions of this kind which I fail to find, be it because they were deleted, badly written or downvoted into oblivion.)
Most of these questions are not duplicates of each other, because they differ in detail. Yet there is a lot of overlap between the answers, which could be covered in a canonical question and answer. It could cover such basics as:
- How do I find out whether this is normal or not?
- How do I decide when to act?
- How should I act?
This would have the following advantage:
Basic questions of this type where we can answer nothing but general advice can be closed as a duplicate of the canonical question. This avoids us reïterating the same advice again and again and is more helpful to the asker. Some askers may even find this question before asking and get help immediately.
Questions that are about a special, interesting situation can focus on this. We can refer the asker to the canonical Q&A to cover the basic information.
Typical comments can be avoided or at least reduced by asking the asker to read the canonical Q&A first and editing their question accordingly. Such comments include:
What is your field?
Wait at least half a year.
(which is bad guidance in some fields with quicker review processes)
The typical replies to such comments.
Thus, I am proposing to create such a canonical question and answer. If you think that an existing question is already suitable for this purpose, please suggest it.
This is a feature-request, i.e., you can indicate approval or opposition by voting on the question.
