Manuscript Status

Q: My revised manuscript has made no progress for over two months. What should I do?

Detailed Question -

I submitted a manuscript to a BMC journal in the middle of July, and received a decision of minor revision in August. As the revision was not so difficult, I submitted the revised manuscript in the middle of August. The status was changed to "Editorial assessment" soon, but 2 months have passed without progress since then.

The decision was delayed, so I sent a reminder in the middle of October. The editorial office replied in 5 days that the recommendation was just issued by the handling editor responsible for my paper, but the decision by the Editor-in-chief was in process. It's been 2 weeks since, but the status is still showing "Editorial assessment."

I am writing a new paper based on this manuscript, so I am a bit nervous because I will not be able to submit the new paper until this pending manuscript is published.

Is such a delay a normal case for minor revision? Should I send a request to make advance with my manuscript asap?

Asked on 07 Nov, 2017

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A delay of two months is quite normal in academic publishing. In fact, the first decision was very quick for you, so you are probably feeling that the decision on the revised manuscript is taking too long. However, since you have another paper that is dependent on the current one, there is no harm in sending a polite inquiry to the journal explaining why you need the decision soon and requesting them to expedite the process.