Q: Can we write a courteous mail asking about the status change from 'Decision Made' to 'Under Consideration'?

Detailed Question -

Two months after submitting the major revisions, the status became ‘Decision Made.’ However, I did not receive the mail. Seven days later, the status changed to ‘Under Consideration,’ and has been so for one week now. Would it be appropriate to inquire about the decision as follows?

“The comments from the previous reviewer were invaluable for us, and we carefully made the major revisions in accordance with their review along with including more experiments. We sincerely hope our manuscript is accepted.”

Asked on 26 Feb, 2020

Answer
1 Answer to this question
Answer:

The change from ‘Decision Made’ to ‘Under Consideration’ evidently means that the journal has revised their (final) decision on your revised manuscript. It may be that initially they were not positive about it, but now see some merits in it, and are therefore giving it futher consideraiton. This could be in case the reviewers and/or the editors (Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief) have conflicting views on the revised manuscript. If so, they may send the revised manuscript to another reviewer for a final look. In that case, the status may change to ‘Under Review’ again. You should know in the next few days.

About writing them a mail, you could do so if the status does not change for, let’s say, 10-15 days. However, it would be better to simply check with them for an update, but not express the desire that the decision be positive. So, while the first sentence of your proposed mail is fine, instead of the second sentence, you could say something like “If you need us to provide any clarifications or changes, we would be happy to do so.”

All the best nevertheless!

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Additionally, you may find this handbook helpful: A practical handbook of templates for communicating with the journal