Things to know while you wait for a decision
Table of Contents
Status: Awaiting Admin Processing
Once a paper arrives at the editorial office, it’s checked to ensure it is adequately anonymized and does not exceed the page limit.
Status: Awaiting AE Assignment
The Chief Editors independently read and evaluate every paper sent to the journal. These papers are then discussed at the fortnightly editorial meeting. At this point, papers are either desk rejected or passed along to an Associate Editor.
Status: Awaiting Referee Selection
Associate Editors may recommend desk rejection at this point. If not, their job is to seek out (a minimum of) two referees. Your paper will be marked as ‘awaiting referee assignment’ until two referees have been secured.
Status: Awaiting Referee Scores
The full complement of referees is in place. (Note that if a referee later pulls out or we need to recruit a third referee, your paper may revert to being marked as ‘awaiting referee assignment’.)
Status: Awaiting Recommendation
When all referee reports are returned, Associate Editors write their recommendations to the Chief Editors, based on their reading of the reports and the paper itself.
Status: Awaiting Decision
At this point, your paper appears once more on the agenda for the fortnightly editorial meeting. The Chief Editors independently evaluate the Associate Editor’s recommendation, along with the referee reports. At the meeting itself, your paper is discussed. This will usually result in a decision, but sometimes the Chief Editors will return the paper to an Associate Editor for more information, or will request that the Associate Editor find a third referee (because one or other referee report is judged inadequate, for example). In such a case, the paper’s status will revert to one of the earlier stages.
The BJPS peer-review process
We desk reject a lot of papers and do so without reports. This means you’ll likely receive notification of a desk rejection after fourteen days or so (though this may take somewhat longer, for example, over the Christmas break).
Referees agree to return their reports to us within four weeks, but we have no power to enforce this. We regularly chase referees when they are late—our system does not allow us to forget about your paper and we are working behind the scenes to get reports back as soon as possible (so emailing us about your paper won’t change anything).
See our latest report on the average time it takes to get a decision.
NOTE More on this below, but if you are thinking of emailing us to ask about the status of your paper, note that we will not respond. We can chase late referees or we can reassure authors, and we figure you’d prefer us to do the former.
No matter how good our average, there are always outliers. There are a number of reasons why your paper isn’t moving through the process as fast as some others.
We rule over our Associate Editors with an iron fist, and the Chief Editors meet fortnightly, so delays as a result of matters internal to the journal are rare (Christmas breaks, illness, and so on aside). Where delays do occur due to internal matters, this is usually because after reading the two referee reports, we decide a third referee is necessary.
The vast majority of delays stem from one of two sources (although both are possible!).
The first type of delay is the result of problems securing referees. This can take weeks, or even months: Invite two people, await response. If the invite is declined, invite a new person. If the invite is ignored, wait seven days—giving referees anything less than five working days days receives pushback from those who want time to consider the invite—then invite someone else. Repeat perhaps twenty (and occasionally more) times.
The second major cause of delay results from referees not meeting their deadlines. We ask referees to commit to returning their reports within four weeks, but we can do nothing to enforce this. We repeatedly chase referees when they are late. Our system does not let us to forget about your paper and we are always working behind the scenes to get reports back as soon as possible (so emailing us about your paper won’t actually speed anything up).
Your question not answered here? Let us know.