Q: Is it normal for a paper to be in Awaiting Editor Assignment a long time? Also, can an acceptance decision change if it's pending revisions?

Hello Mohammed – Welcome to the forum! And let’s take your questions one by one.

Status stuck at Awaiting Editor Assignment

The manuscript awaiting the assignment of an editor for more than two-and-half months is both a bit long and unusual. It’s more common to have a challenge finding peer reviewers, unless with this journal or for this paper, the review is to be done internally. If that’s not the case, the journal is having a challenge assigning an editor to the paper, probably due to the nature of the paper or perhaps due to some internal resourcing challenge. You should write to the journal immediately seeking an update on the paper. If the journal is unable to find an editor soon, you may consider withdrawing your paper from here and submitting elsewhere.

Possibility of the decision changing from acceptance during the confirmation/validation review

If you have received an acceptance decision (pending minor comments), the decision should stand. The decision has come from the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), who makes the final decision after both the handling editor’s and the reviewers’ recommendations. The journal should not go back on this. So, you can rest easy. :-) As they said it was “pending minor revisions,” the Under Review status refers to the confirmation of the changes by the reviewers (or the handling editor). So, congrats on the acceptance!

What you should rather/now put your mind to is to take the accepted paper toward publication, for which you will find the following resources (around proofing) useful:

• What is the minimum number of comments to be included while proofing my paper?
• Can I correct an error in citation at the page proof stage?
• Can I replace an image at the proofing stage before publication?

All the best for closing one paper and determining your next actions on the other paper!