Hilde has been ever so occupied with her research, especially finishing a manuscript for the first time. Submitting that paper was supposed to be some sort of closure, and mental solace, yet somehow there seems to be a predilection for progressive diffidence:
When has enough time passed to send a reminder/enquiry to an editor if the paper is in the ‘decision with editor’-stage?
Dear Hilde,
Don’t worry. These are busy people. Their priority is not your mental welfare. It’s theirs. They’ve got a smelly swamp of papers to wade through, grade, assess, recheck and scan. Rinse and repeat. Ground down as one should be by such endeavour, customer care and courtesy is granted only a low priority. If it is awarded some sense of priority to begin with. You’ll get your email when you get your email. Be content you get one to begin with. Your manuscript might just end up at the bottom of the pile, resulting in an overflow of papers for the latest issue and there might be a chance you get published in a month or two. Meanwhile, you spend some of your time refreshing the manuscript page of the online editorial system.
Let’s face it: journals are not suited to reassure the impatient researcher, nor were they designed as such. It’s about publishing research and advancing science, and in the process they get some subscriptions to keep the lights on… You should be honoured you get the chance to get your science out there. Through that unparalleled medium of the journal. They sure are not the only fossils out there. Sure, turnaround times are decent (for a bunch of journals, and only when averaged over the ever increasing list of new submissions), but the process can be quite a wake-up call for the soon(-or-not-that-soon)-to-be first-time author. It’s a test of patience. It’s a test of resilience. It’s a test of chirpiness. Don’t get bogged down by the system, and when you finally think “Now it’s time to send an email to the editor” just wait another few weeks.
Yours truly,
The Sassy Scientist
PS: This post was written without a nosey editor.
