PNAS ‘With Editor’: What the Status Can and Cannot Tell You

The phrase commonly appears while a submission is being handled on the editorial side of the workflow. That can include initial assessment, assignment or reassignment, an editor’s evaluation of the materials available in the record, or work connected to the next editorial step. The label by itself does not distinguish among those possibilities.

That is frustrating, but it is also a useful guardrail. A portal field is not a reviewer report. It cannot tell you whether an editor likes the abstract, whether reviewers have accepted invitations, whether another editor is being identified, or whether a decision has been drafted. Treating any of those stories as fact is how status anxiety turns into bad decisions.

For the journal’s current rules on article preparation and policies, start with the PNAS Author Center and editorial and journal policies, rather than a third-party timing chart.

Labels can vary by platform and evolve. If your own record uses a different phrase, use the journal’s message text and contact route as the authority.

This timeline is deliberately about the work an author can do. It does not say that PNAS completes a particular editorial stage on any of these days.

Day 0: preserve the submitted record

Save the submitted PDF, source files, supplementary files, repository links, cover letter, declarations, and the confirmation message in one folder. Record the manuscript ID and the corresponding author. This protects the version history if the journal asks for a file correction or a response.

Day 1: verify claims against evidence

Create a claim-to-evidence table for the abstract, main results, figures, methods, data, and code. The goal is not to change the paper because a portal label has appeared. It is to know where the evidence sits if a handling editor or reviewer asks a precise question.

Days 1 to 7: check availability and reporting details

In parallel with editorial handling, confirm that every data accession, code repository, figure source file, protocol, consent statement, funding declaration, and competing-interest statement is current. For an applicable study design, check the relevant primary reporting framework such as CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, or ARRIVE. This is an evidence audit, not an instruction to upload an unrequested replacement manuscript.

Days 1 to 7: prepare a concise explanation of significance

At the same time, prepare a one-paragraph explanation of the general contribution, the central claim, the strongest figure, the key limitation, and the exact data or methods that support the claim. These concurrent preparation tasks are useful whether PNAS advances the manuscript, requests clarification, or sends a decision.

PNAS is a multidisciplinary journal of the National Academy of Sciences, and its published Direct Submission description places an Editorial Board assessment before a paper can proceed to full peer-review handling. If a paper goes forward, a handling editor with relevant expertise can oversee the review, and a guest editor may be used when appropriate expertise is needed. PNAS's documented structure explains why editorial responsibility can move from an initial Board assessment into expert handling, but it is not a window into a particular submission's assignment or decision path.

That is a meaningful editorial structure, but it does not reveal who is handling your specific file, how many reviewers are involved, or what any editor thinks. We therefore treat the PNAS label as a reason to prepare a clear abstract, evidence record, methods explanation, and data-access plan, not as permission to invent an editorial narrative.

No conclusion follows from the label alone. The question sounds like it should have a clean answer, but PNAS does not publish the private queue, editor availability, consultation history, reviewer-invitation state, or decision rationale for your individual manuscript. A longer interval can feel alarming without constituting evidence of a negative outcome; a quick change can also occur in either direction.

The more useful question is: is there something concrete I need to correct or disclose? If the answer is no, keep the manuscript exclusive to PNAS and avoid manufacturing a story from the portal. If the answer is yes, for example an ethics correction, an author-list problem, a data-access issue, or a material factual error, use the official manuscript contact route promptly and explain the specific change.

"My paper has been With Editor. Should I be worried?"

Not on the basis of that label alone. A status field does not expose a queue, reviewer count, consultation, or decision rationale. The reliable response is to distinguish a real manuscript problem from ordinary uncertainty: correct a verified ethics, authorship, data, or file issue; otherwise wait for formal correspondence and keep your evidence record ready. That approach protects the paper better than treating every day without a status change as a hidden signal.

The status window can be productive without becoming a speculative rewrite. Build a small decision file that makes any future response faster:

This is not a request to change a submitted paper silently. It is a way to prepare accurate answers if PNAS contacts you.

1. Treating a label as a reviewer count

“With Editor” does not establish that any reviewer has been invited, accepted, declined, or submitted a report. Do not send a pre-emptive reviewer rebuttal, and do not contact possible reviewers about a confidential manuscript.

2. Treating historical averages as a personal deadline

PNAS published historical Direct Submission aggregates in a 2014 editorial, including initial-screening and first-decision figures. Those values are not a current guarantee and cannot explain an individual file. Use the current Author Center for policies; use the manuscript record for your actual correspondence.

3. Rewriting the manuscript to chase an imagined objection

An unrequested, broad rewrite can create version-control and author-approval problems. Instead, prepare the significance statement, evidence ledger, and reproducibility materials above. They are useful for a revision, transfer decision, or future submission without assuming an editor’s view.

The threshold is a concrete manuscript issue, not a number of days attached to “With Editor.” Contact the journal through the manuscript record or the PNAS office at pnas@nas.edu when you need to report an ethics concern, authorship change, material error, data-access change, permissions issue, or a time-sensitive matter that genuinely alters the submission. For portal access, use PNAS Central and follow any instructions shown in your own record.

PNAS does not publish reviewer count or recruitment timing for a live “With Editor” manuscript. Do not use an unsourced reviewer count, a crowd-sourced anecdote, or a historical average as an escalation trigger. If the journal has given you a specific deadline or requested information, that written instruction outranks this general guide.

Use a concise message through the route shown in the manuscript record or the PNAS author-contact information when there is a concrete issue that the office needs to know about:

• a material correction affecting ethics, safety, authorship, conflicts, data availability, or the validity of a central claim;
• a submission-file or permissions problem the journal has asked you to resolve;
• a genuine external deadline that changes the manuscript’s availability; or
• a request for clarification after the journal’s own published guidance or correspondence directs you to follow up.

Include the manuscript ID, a one-sentence description of the issue, and the exact action requested. Do not claim that the portal status proves a delay or a decision.

A decision letter, not a status label, should determine the next move. First identify whether the stated issue is scope, evidence, reporting, framing, or a journal-specific requirement. Then choose one owner for the work:

• Scope or audience mismatch: revise the journal-fit and broad-significance framing before considering another venue.
• Evidence or methods concern: build a claim-to-evidence response map; do not answer a methodological request with only a new cover letter.
• Reporting or availability concern: repair the underlying data, code, protocol, disclosure, or figure record before resubmission.
• Transfer option offered: read the destination journal’s current policy independently; a transfer does not erase the need to check fit.

For next steps after a decision, see the PNAS submission guide and the PNAS under-review guide. They cover different reader jobs: preparing a new submission and navigating a status that explicitly indicates peer review.

This is the original decision artifact we use to keep status advice from becoming generic reassurance. It does not predict acceptance. It tells an author what to verify before choosing an action.

This is not a forecast about PNAS. It is a preparation table for the kinds of manuscript components that usually need to be traceable in editorial or peer-review correspondence.

The safest pattern is to hold a message when it would only ask the office to decode “With Editor.” Instead, identify the concrete trigger and attach the exact evidence. Three common hold signals are a claim that exceeds the supporting figure or methods, an unresolved data or code link, and an author, consent, conflict, or permissions change that has not been checked. These are different problems, but all are better handled with a specific manuscript ID, a concise factual description, and a clear requested action.

Another hold signal is an imagined reviewer objection. Do not write to PNAS because the abstract, figure, methods, or supplementary material might prompt a question someday. Prepare the evidence map privately. Contact the office only when an actual record defect or formal request requires a response. That keeps the inquiry useful for the journal and protects the author group from unnecessary version confusion.

The 2014 PNAS editorial reported that the Editorial Board declined 54 percent of Direct Submissions at initial screening, that the overall acceptance rate was 17 percent, that most initial decisions were made within 2 weeks, and that papers receiving full review had a first decision after an average of 40 days. Those are historical figures reported by the journal in an editorial process description, not 2026 timing commitments. PNAS does not publish a current numeric status-to-duration service level for “With Editor.”

That limitation changes the right action: do not reverse-engineer your manuscript’s outcome from the historical aggregate. Use it only to understand why a status label cannot provide the granularity an individual author wants.