Q: Why haven't I heard from the Associate Editor even one month after the completion of the peer review?
After the peer review, the status was updated to ‘Review Finalized.’ Now, one month has passed, but I have received no information from the Associate Editor (AE). I am worried, and so, made an inquiry, but got no response. Then, I sent an email to the Editorial Board and the Editor-in-Chief (EiC), but again, have received no response. What are the possibilities in such a situation?
We can understand how it feels. The review is completed, but you don’t know whether it’s an accept, a revise-and-resubmit, or a reject. And you haven’t known this for one month now. :-/ To make it worse, no one has replied to you.
Anyway, the delay is probably because the AE is very busy with other manuscripts and other journal tasks. However, you could write to them again. Maybe they missed your mail last time and will hopefully notice it this time and respond to you. This time, in case you didn’t do so last time, talk a bit more about the importance of the manuscript to your research goals and the need for a decision by a certain timeline.
In case you don’t hear from them again, you could try writing to them through any of the support/contact mail IDs provided on their site. We wouldn’t suggest withdrawing the manuscript yet, as it went for peer review and you don’t know that status. So, wait for some time, see what the next actions are from the journal side (if any), and then decide. If needed, you could write to us again for the next actions to follow.
Hope that helps. And hope this is soon resolved. :-)
Here are a few resources on journal communication that you may use for your next pieces of communication.
This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage