Navigating the Peer Review Process
11-7
reviewers who are experts in your field of study. The reviewers are contacted and asked if they are willing to review your manuscript. Potential reviewers may refuse because they are too busy or they do not believe the topic of the manuscript falls within their area of expertise. If that happens, another potential reviewer will have to be contacted. The process of establishing reviewers generally takes less than 2 weeks. Then comes the review itself. This is when experts in your field — typically 2 but sometimes 3 — scrutinize your manuscript and determine whether it sufficiently meets the standards of that journal and of that field to merit publication. Reviewers are generally allowed up to 3 weeks to do their reviews. After that, staff members in the journal editorial office begin to follow up on late reviews. Despite the staff’s best efforts, however, reviews can be late by several weeks or even, unfortunately, several months. If 2 months have passed since you first submitted your manuscript and you have not received a decision letter, it is OK to contact the editorial office and ask about the status of your manuscript and the review process. Be polite and considerate when you call or e-mail. Remember that yours is not the only manuscript out for review. Depending on the journal, there may be as many as 100 or more manuscripts out for review at any time. When the journal office receives the reviews, the editor-in-chief or s enior editor decides on the basis of the reviewers’ comments whether the manuscript should be accepted for publication as is, returned for revision, or rejected. A decision letter is then e- mailed, faxed, or mailed to you along with the reviewers’ comments. If the editor judges your manuscript acceptable without revisions, then you do not need to do anything more at this point — except maybe celebrate. Acceptance without revision is unusual, however. If your manuscript is rejected or returned for revision (the most common response), you will need to decide how to proceed. Your options are outlined in the following 2 sections.
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software