Q: My paper is with the editor status for excessively long time

Detailed Question -

I have submitted my manuscript to a journal under the publishing group Elsevier. The date of submission was 18th Apr 2022. On 19th Apr the status of my submission changed to 'With the editor' and is continuing with that status until now. I have raised queries twice and mailed the publisher through the link that was provided on the editorial manager page. I have received the reply "your paper will be assed in due course of time". Average time for the first decision is cited as 7.9 weeks for this paper and it is 11.9 weeks for the final decision. What should I do?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Dear Author,

Thank you for your question. I understand that you may be anxious to receive a decision from the journal. Given that the status of your submission continues to be “with the editor,” it’s likely that the journal editor hasn’t been able to find suitable reviewers for your paper. Since you have already contacted them and received a response, I would recommend waiting for a few weeks and sending a polite inquiry to the editor if you don’t see a change in status.

Thereafter, if you neither get a response from the journal nor find any change in status, it would be better to withdraw your paper. For this, you will need to inform the Editor of your decision to withdraw and request a confirmation of the withdrawal. Do not submit your manuscript to another journal before you receive a confirmation of withdrawal from the Editor, as this can be considered as a case of duplicate or simultaneous submission.

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