Lesson 25 of 30 · Surviving peer review

Review timelines, and what the statuses actually mean

The waiting is the hardest part of publishing, and most of the anxiety comes from not knowing what the status in the portal actually means. Here is the rough map.

After you submit, the paper sits "with editor" while an editor decides whether to desk-reject it or send it out; this is usually days to a couple of weeks, and a fast move to "under review" is good news, because it means you cleared the desk.

"Under review" or "reviewers assigned" means the hard wait has begun: finding and hearing back from reviewers is the slow step, and one to three months is normal in most fields, longer in some. A status that flips back to "with editor" after review usually means the reports are in and a decision is being written, which is a good sign that you are close.

Two practical rules. First, silence is usually normal, not bad: reviewers are unpaid and busy, and a paper sitting for two months is ordinary. Second, a polite nudge is fair once you are clearly past the journal's own stated average, or past about three months with no movement. Keep it short and courteous, address the editor, quote your manuscript number, and simply ask for an update. Nudging too early, or angrily, does not speed anything up and is remembered.

Your move

Look up your target journal's typical time to first decision (its website, or a community site like SciRev, will give a range). Write it down, and note the date at which a polite status nudge would become reasonable, so you are not refreshing the portal every day in month one.

Why: Knowing the normal timeline turns months of anxiety into a plan, and knowing when a nudge is fair stops you from either suffering in silence or annoying the editor who decides your fate.

Worked example

An author panicked at six weeks of silence and sent an anxious email; the journal's own average was fourteen weeks, and the note just flagged them as impatient. Another waited past the stated average, sent a two-line courteous nudge, and got a decision within the week.

The pattern that loses papers here

Reading normal silence as a bad sign and either despairing or nudging in the first few weeks. The slow step is unpaid reviewers, and a paper sitting for a month or two is the ordinary case, not a problem.

Check it against your draft

You know your target journal's typical time to first decision
You understand what 'with editor' and 'under review' mean
You have a fair date for a polite nudge, not an anxious early one

Write your answer and keep it

Reading is free and always will be. An account is what lets you write your own answer to this move, get it read back to you, and keep everything you build as you go.