Q: What should I do if my accepted paper has not been published for more than six months?

Detailed Question -

My paper was accepted. However, the status has been In Editing for more than six months. I contacted the journal several times, and finally received the following response: “We contacted Siliconchips but received no response. Even the Editor-in-Chief does not know what is happening.” I have contacted Siliconchips too, but have not received a response. How can I resolve this situation?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Sigh, this is perhaps one of the most frustrating situations to be in, if not the most. At least if the delay were in finding reviewers or in the review, you could consider withdrawing and submitting elsewhere. But here, you can’t do that. Which must have reduced or even removed the joy of having the paper accepted. (All the same, congrats on the acceptance.) What is probably even more frustrating is the journal response that ‘even the EIC doesn’t know what is happening.’ So, we can understand you deciding to be enterprising and writing directly to Siliconchips, but unfortunately, even that has provided futile so far.

On our part, we looked up Siliconchips online to assess its legitimacy and current standing. The company (which is into digital prepress solutions) does seem legitimate and there have also been updates from the company in recent times. In short, the company is presently operational. While the onus of taking your accepted manuscript forward should be on the journal, you may continue approaching Siliconchips in other ways until you possibly hear from them. On their contact page, there are multiple ways of getting in touch with them, such as form, mail, and social media. In case you have tried only one option, you could try the others. Additionally, you could again write to the journal informing them that you have been trying to contact Siliconchips, but would help if the journal could do so too. If needed, you may also wish to take the help of a senior/supervisor in these efforts as also to suggest further alternatives.

Now, we would also like to suggest something else. Presently, apart from following up with the journal/prepress company, you may have moved to your next project or research milestone. However, you may also wish to spend some time doing something that could both provide a bit of a distraction from the present frustration and also benefit your research. You may wish to utilize this time thinking about research promotion. As researchers, it’s important not just to publish your work, but also publicize your work. This leads to greater visibility for your research, the chance of future collaborations, invites to industry events, and possibly impact on future funding opportunities. If interested, to get you started, we have shared a few links below, from right here on Editage Insights as well as with a few of our family brands, such as R Upskill (which offers courses for researchers) and Impact Science (which helps promote published research in various ways). You may go through these over time, at your leisure.

More immediately though, if your paper does get typeset sometime soon, it will come to you for proofing, for which it may help to prepare yourself by going through the following resources:

However, we can also understand if you simply wish to focus on first having your accepted paper published. In which case, we hope some of the suggestions made earlier help and your paper does move toward publication. All the best for that. And keep the faith. :)

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