Q: What should I do if the status is showing "Awaiting Editorial Assistant Processing" since submission?

‘Awaiting Editorial Assistant Processing’ means that your article is yet to go through the initial check for quality of the study and match with the journal’s scope. This could be because they haven’t yet found or assigned somebody for the task. Note that journals such as ScholarOne receive a huge volume of submissions – and mails. Plus, the summer break would have just ended in the US, so there is likely to be a backlog. As you have already written to them once, and it has been only three weeks since submission, you could wait for some more time, perhaps till the end of the month. If you still don’t hear from them by then, you could write to them again seeking an update.

Related reading:

• Tracking your manuscript status in journal submission systems
• Can you help me understand the status of my manuscripts on ScholarOne?