Q: Why is the re-review time unusually long for my paper?

Detailed Question -

I submitted a manuscript to Elsevier journal on Jan. 19. I received reviewers' comments on Feb. 15. The reviewers' comments are: Reviewer 1 appreciated the work and said that  it is of potential interest for many useers.He had only a few very minor comments, which could be even addressed at the proofreading stage: one suggested adding a reference, the second required splitting a table, and the last one asked to make a database in our work available for public. Reviewer 2 pointed out a few errors and asked me to explain some unclear areas in the work, and asked me to change a caption of a figure and to make the database available as the first reviewer had.

Although I think the comments imply minor correction to the manuscript, the decision of the editor was major correction and revise within 6 weeks. I revised the manuscript addressing all comments and resubmit by the end of 4 weeks, on March 14. While I was expecting receiving of approval shortly, the manuscript stayed "with editor" for longer than the first review time. I wrote to the editor asking about the status and after one hour the status changed to "under review". Given that the average time taken between revised and accepted is 13 days for this journal and my case now already exceeded 45 days, will the manuscript be likely rejected?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

The time taken for evaluating a manuscript does not in any way indicate that it is going to be rejected. In fact, if anything, the editor is doing his/her level best to give your manuscript a fair chance. The fact that the status changed to "under review" once again indicates that the paper has been sent for another round of review. There is nothing unusual about this. In fact, papers that receive a major revision request are almost always sent for a second round of review.

True, the re-review usually does not take as long as the first review if the paper is sent to the same set of reviewers, but the editor can choose to send it to new reviewers, in which case, it can take longer.

While the website mentions that average time from revision to acceptance as 13 days, note that it is the "average time," not the standard time for every manuscript. So while some manuscripts may be done sooner than the average time, some others can be delayed. However, by industry standards, 45 days is not very long. 

You should definitely keep sending poilte reminders every 2-3 weeks, but don't push too hard at this stage. Your manuscript is reaching closure and you wouldn't want to appear impatient at this stage.

All the best!

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