Q: Should I withdraw my manuscript if there is no status change and no response from the editor for 9 months?
I submitted a manuscript to a journal on January 17, 2019. The status of the paper has been 'Under review' since the day I submitted it. Until now, I have mailed the editor about three times to ask about the progress of my paper, but received no response from him/her. I strongly feel this is an unnecessary delay and I am now considering to withdraw my paper from the journal. Kindly advise me.
Some journals show the status "Under review" from submission to first decision and do not display the interim statuses. However, such journals should ideally respond to queries from authors more proactively, since the authors have no other way of getting updates about the progress of the manuscript.
However, in your case, since there has been no progress since January 2019 and no response from the journal, I feel it would be a good idea to withdraw the paper without wasting any more time. However, one word of caution: do not submit your paper to another journal unless you have received a confirmation of withdrawal, as this could lead to duplicate submission.
To find out more about the withdrawal process, please go through the following articles:
This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage