As scientists we are expected to publish paper in so-called peer-reviewed journals which is supposed to ensure the quality of publication. Most of the journals are quite well organized and for nearly all my papers I had results from the review process after at least two months. Sometimes it happens that one reviewer takes longer time, so I inquiry to the editor in charge and things are solved a few weeks later. But now I have a paper under review which takes already more than five months without getting any review results. I am not so much concerned about the delay itself, but the implications which arise from it. If the paper is rejected, I think it would be fair to get the information ASAP in order to re-do the research and sum-up the work in a new and better fashion. If the reviewers wants to have only the paper revised, one or more re-reviews might follow which is a time-consuming process again. Thus, one year from the first review until the paper is accepted is nothing in time-scales of research publications. Since most of the journals have many accepted papers in their production pipeline, another year can be over before the article goes into print. Thus the question remains, how up-to-date publications can be when some of the journal have such long delays between initial submission and the time when the paper appears?
I know that there are a variety of journals which have much shorter turn-around times, which allow to publish really “fresh” results without much delay. Its hard to say, where the bottleneck of the peer-review process is located, but whenever I get a paper for review I try to have it off my table (reviewed) as soon as possible, but at least within one month. Also most of the editors do a great job and remind the reviewers about their due times. But sometimes things don’t go well and papers seem to be delayed for an endless amount of time. From the authors point of view this is the most annoying situation as he does not know how to proceed on. Moreover, if the reviews are finally coming after half a year or later, its hard to do the necessary revisions, as most of us have already started to work on new research topics and projects.

Popularity: 3%