Manuscript Status

Q: Will my paper be sent for peer review?

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I submitted a paper of mine to an Emerald journal.It said awaiting reviewer selection for 3 weeks. Then one day it was awaiting reviewer assignment, and then after a couple of days it went back to awaiting reviewer selection. What does this mean? Will it go for review?

Asked on 07 Dec, 2018

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Answer:

Once you submit your manuscript, the exact course of the peer review process depends on the specific journal that you have submitted to. For your current submission, the status change you have described indicates that your manuscript had passed the admin check and the reviewer selection process had started.

However, it appears that your manuscript has not yet undergone the peer review process. One possibility is that the journal editor was having difficulty finding suitable peer reviewers for your paper. It is also possible that the handling editor did find suitable reviewers, but they were not available to review your paper at the time. This would explain the status change from "Awaiting Reviewer Assignment" back to "Awaiting Reviewer Selection."

I don't think you should worry because this does not look like a case of desk rejection. If the editor is still looking for suitable reviewers for your paper, then he/she intends to send your paper for peer review.