Q: How long should I wait to send a second query about a manuscript's status?

Hello Diego – Welcome to the forum. By the way, although it’s your first paper, you seem quite knowledgeable of the process. So, kudos there already!

Coming to your query, it’s more than fine to send a second query about the status now. As you have noted yourself, eight months or thereabouts is a long time for a manuscript to have been in peer review (although there are instances of manuscripts having spent longer in review). Handling editors are quite used to receiving queries from authors during review – they understand how eager/anxious authors are about knowing the first decision on the manuscript. So, go right ahead; hopefully, the editor will have a more current update. In fact, close to four months since checking in again is quite long; you should ideally have mailed again after a max of two months. But as it’s your first time, that’s ok. :-) When writing to the editor this time, you can also talk about the reason/s for knowing the decision on the paper soon, such as publishing goals and academic dependencies.

Now, in case it’s likely to take much longer, you may have to consider withdrawing the manuscript from here and submitting elsewhere. But this is something you’ll need to think about after hearing from the editor and perhaps after consulting with them too (as well as a senior/supervisor). For now, you should just write to the editor and wait to hear from them.

All the best for the next steps!

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