Q: What should I do if my manuscript has been stuck at the 'Editor Assigned' status for a month?
I submitted to a BMC journal, but the status has been ‘Editor Assigned’ for a month (since March 7). I used the journal’s Research Square feature and found that manuscripts also on bioinformation that were submitted at the same time as mine or even earlier have been sent for review, but mine is still stuck at ‘Editor Assigned.’ What is going on? Should I write to the editor?
It’s great that you are keeping such a close eye on your manuscript. As you mentioned BMC and bioinformation, you seem to have submitted to BMC Bioinformatics. Also, note that Research Square is not a feature. Research Square is a company providing solutions and services to researchers and has partnered with BMC (and other journals) to create a preprint service known as In Review. This is perhaps the service you accessed to view the other papers.
Coming to your query, it would not be entirely fair to assess why the other papers have moved to peer review but yours has not. There may be a variety of reasons for this, some beyond our privy. One reason could be that the editor needs some more time deciding on your paper, perhaps due to the nature of the research. Another reason could be that they are deciding whether or not to refer to a section editor (the journal seems to have a few section editors on board), to make a decision on the paper. If they have found that the paper matches the journal’s scope, perhaps they are not able to find suitable or sufficient peer reviewers. In the worst case that they have not decided favorably on your paper, they still need to share their decision with the Editor-in-Chief (EiC), who makes the final decision. So, as you can see, there are several possibilities.
As you sound quite eager, and also because it’s a fair consideration, you may indeed go ahead and write to the editor about the status. You may, of course, want to word the mail a bit carefully, communicating your eagerness but ensuring you are not coming across as “pushy.” For doing so, you may find this handbook resourceful: A practical handbook of templates for communicating with the journal
Good luck with the communication and subsequent steps!
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This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage