Q: Why is the review status going on switching between 'Under review' and 'Assigning for review'?

Detailed Question -

I submitted a manuscript to a medical science journal. The status was ‘Assigning to editors’ for three days and then ‘Under review’ for a month. I thought this meant the external review. However, the status changed to ‘Assigning for review’ for about a week and then changed to ‘Under review’ again, this time for about a week. Now, it has changed to ‘Assigning for review’ again. I am really confused with the changes, and the editorial office is not responding to my request. Could anyone help explain this please?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Yes, these frequent initial status changes can be exasperating and even frustrating, but they do happen. This typically means that the Associate/Managing Editor (AE/ME) has been trying to find and assign the manuscript to peer reviewers, but they are backing out after initially accepting the invitation. Reviewers usually back out due to unavailability (due to being busy with other work), a mismatch with the subject of the paper, or a conflict of interest. While these may very well be the reasons here, we believe it may rather be due to the approaching holiday period. Reviewers’ work plans are probably changing based on their leave plans, reflecting in the constant back-and-forth in the status.

Also, you have mentioned that the editorial office hasn’t yet responded to your request. Again, they may be seeking to complete other work before the holidays. They may just manage to respond to you before commencing their holiday (as they check off all items on their to-do list), or if the workload is too much, they may not, preferring to get back early/mid-January, when the holiday period ends.

You could consider dropping them another mail, and leave it at that for now. If later the issue seems to be one of finding suitable reviewers, and you know of any, and if the journal policy allows, you may consider sharing a list of reviewers. If in the worst case they aren’t able to find reviewers even once the holidays are over, you may consider withdrawing from here and submitting elsewhere. But we would suggest waiting out the holiday period, because other journals would probably be going through similar work scenarios.

For more perspectives on similar situations faced by other researchers/academics, you may refer to these previous questions.

Hope that helps. And, holidays permitting, hope you hear from them soon!

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