Advice needed – I can't reach my collaborator, but there's a short deadline for revising our journal article submission

Question

My collaborator and I submitted an article to a special issue of a journal. He did most of the writing of the article, while I did the technical work such as running simulations, generating plots, and typesetting the article in LaTeX.

After two revisions, the article has been accepted with major (one reviewer) and minor (the other reviewer) revisions needed. We were given a relatively short (3 weeks) deadline to make the revisions, due to the deadline for making up the special issue of the journal.

Unfortunately, my collaborator has suddenly become unreachable by email for the last 5 days. As we're living in different cities, I have no idea if he experienced a medical or family emergency, or if he suddenly is no longer interested in the article, or is no longer alive? (He's probably alive, touch wood, my point is just that I feel quite confused with the situation, and my imagination is running a bit wild at this point.)

Question: How should I proceed with a short deadline for revising our journal article submission, if I am unable to reach my collaborator?

I could try to do the rewriting completely by myself, I believe this is do-able. However, is it "kosher" for me to submit the article revision, if I don't hear from him before the submission deadline?

I could also do nothing, and wait, hoping that he becomes reachable again, but the longer I wait, the greater the risk that we'll miss the deadline and have to go through the entire journal article acceptance process again.

I'd really appreciate some advice as this is quite confusing, and it feels strange to be so close, yet so far, in getting this journal article finally accepted and published.

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Update:

A few days after I posted this question, my collaborator finally responded to my email. He didn't explain exactly why he was out of communication, but I am inferring that he was really busy with things on his end. We'll be working this week to get the paper submitted on time, it will be a bit tight but I think it's manageable.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions, fortunately I didn't have to use them this time, but hopefully someone else who encounters this situation in the future can use these really helpful suggestions.

Answer 1

(Promoted from a comment.)

As well as agreeing with other posters that you might as well start working on revisions yourself, I would strongly suggest that you contact the editor now rather than waiting for closer to the deadline. You can indicate your uncertainty, i.e. that everything might be OK (co-author responds to your queries, revisions get made, everything is submitted before the deadline), but it is best if everyone knows what's going on earlier rather than later. In addition to explaining the situation, you might ask:

• how strict the deadline is
• what editorial policies would apply if you end up needing to resubmit without being able to contact the co-author for approval (i.e., would the editor let you resubmit without having been able to formally receive consent from all of the co-authors? This could be a "don't ask don't tell" sort of thing, but transparency is best if you can manage it ...)

It won't take the editor long to respond to a short, clear, query, and there's no harm done if it turns out to have been unnecessary.

Answer 2

Certainly you can start on revising yourself while you continue to try to reach the other person. If you reach them you can give them what you have done and continue from there.

Perhaps you can reach them through a third party if you know of someone, perhaps someone they work with.

Doing nothing seems like the worst option.

But if you have to send in your own revision without help, let the editor know of the problem, Perhaps they can extend the deadline a bit.

Answer 3

I am wondering if a call is not an option. You can also call the reception at his/her institute, one of the students, etc. The fact that the deadline for a paper you both wanted out is approaching gives you the right to try every way to contact him, in my opinion. This would also let you know if that person has problems of a sort, though their nature might be or not revealed. Actually, in most cases that would be my primary concern as for coauthors are often kind of friends. If the lack of answer is on purpose, well, you must ascertain it anyway.

Once all ways to contact your coauthor failed, again is my opinion that you could proceed alone and submit.

Edit after comment.

I've considered it somehow implicit, but on resubmitting you should inform the editor about the situation. This would move the responsibility to the Journal. A possible outcome is that the article will appear in a standard issue of the journal.

Further - when the revision is straightforward - it is standard for the submitting author to contact all coauthors and pose a very short deadline for them to answers. Then s/he proceeds anyway. There is no much ethic involved. All of them worked for and wanted the paper out. Even in the case that one coauthor changed opinion, then it is his/her duty to communicate with the others. Not revising, although has no public impact, is a sort of retraction and should motivated based on the paper content. Any other option is disrespectful of the editors and referees work, to add a point missed by other answers and comments.

Answer 4

Is your collaborator employed somewhere, at university or in industry? If so, he surely has co-workers, and their e-mail addresses and phone numbers can be found somewhere in the internet.

Try to get in touch with one of them. Call or e-mail his secretary, a postdoc, some other co-worker. At least one of them certainly knows why he does not answer and might have more possibilities to get in touch with him. A secretary, for example, usually knows the private phone number of her boss. They would not give it to you, but they can call him and ask him to respond.

Answer 5

I personally would start to write the revision. Maybe the person is just on vacation?

If your co-author did most of the wrting (as you said), I think it is in his/her interest to get this article published.

Basically you have these two outcomes:

1. Your collaborator answers before the deadline
2. Your collaborator doesn't answer before the deadline

So think about it, in both cases it would be highly beneficial if you start the revision already. If you are on good terms with your co-author there is a very low chance that the person doesn't answer because there is no longer interest in the article.

In the worst case, your co-author doesnt answer. Then you should just revise the article as necessary for the major revision and submit it.

Since this is a journal article and not a conference article, I guess the deadline should be extendable if you really need it.