Q: There have been no responses for 8 months after submitting the revised paper. What should I do?
After submitting a paper to the SSCI journal last year, I received a major revision request and submitted the revised paper at the end of last year. Since then, the status has remained "with Editor" and there has been no further communication from the journal. I have sent two emails to inquire about the progress this June and July, but there has been no reply. Should I keep sending inquiry e-mail or should I keep just waiting? How should I deal with this situation?
As the status of your submission has remained “with Editor” for the last 8 months (which is longer than usual), we would recommend that you send reminders to the editor asking them for a status update. This can be done once every week for the next 3-4 weeks. Be very polite in your emails and explain that you are anxious about your submission and a reply from their end would be appreciated.
If there is still no response and the status has not changed by the end of this month, consider withdrawing your manuscript. The process for withdrawing a manuscript is as follows: Send the earlier journal a withdrawal request. In case the editor does not reply to your withdrawal request, send multiple reminders till you receive a reply. If there is still no reply, write to the journal saying that you will consider the withdrawal process complete if there is no reply within a specific time (set a deadline of 2-3 weeks). You can then submit your manuscript to another journal. However, ensure that you write to the editor of the second journal explaining the situation and providing the email thread about the withdrawal as supporting evidence to assure them that there was no intention of duplicate submission from your end.
Hope this helps. Do write back to us if you have any more questions. All the best!
This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage