Q: How should I interpret the status 'Awaiting Editorial Office Assistant Processing' after resubmitting for 'Major Revisions'?
After receiving a ‘Major Revisions’ decision, I resubmitted the manuscript on the 6th of February. Since then, the status has remained ‘Awaiting Editorial Office Assistant Processing.’ Also, the Editorial Office Assistant (EOA) is different from the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) that I had before. What should I do? I sent them an email two days ago, but I have not received an answer. Help, please.
The ‘Awaiting Editorial Office Assistant Processing’ status after resubmitting for ‘Major Revisions’ in this case probably means that the Associate Editor (AE) or the EOA is yet to review the manuscript for the revisions. Statuses differ from journal to journal. Sometimes, the AE or the EOA may review the revised manuscript themselves; at other times, they may send it back to the peer reviewers for checking. You will have to wait a few more days for the next status update.
About the EOA being different from the EiC, note that while the mails are addressed to the EiC, the EiC is not involved in all the stages of the manuscript review. The EiC is only responsible for the final decision on the manuscript. All other stages are handled by the AE, EOA, or both, as the case may be. Apart from that, here, it may also mean that perhaps the EOA is on leave or has changed, which could be another reason why the manuscript is still awaiting EOA processing. Again, you could wait for a few days to know the next update.
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This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage