calling TAMUM and any other academics

[hatwoman]

I was wondering if any of you know much about standard procedures for submitting articles to journals. My main question is how long do they normally take and at what stage can I start hassling them for an answer? It's a quarterly so I'm guessing the editorial board will have quarterly meetings at which they make some decisions. logic tells me that the worst case scenario could be a 3 month wait. but given that I can;t submit elsewhere until I hear from them that also seems pretty harsh. Any suggestions? do they normally give an indication of when they might let you know? they didn;t originally - should I ask now? many many thanks.

Hatwoman - I don't think frequency of publication normally matters thanks to the miracle of email - IF they are an organised editorial team! But I've always been told 3 months is the normal wait: it just takes that long to think of and locate suitable referees, get their agreement, send the article off, give them a month to review it, remind them, remind them again, get one report back, remind the other referee, compare reports, make a decision, write to you...

You can tell I've done this a time or two, hey! Good luck. Feeling inspired by your comments on the other thread and going to try some writing myself today...

I have published articles in peer reviewed chemical journals as well as been a reviewer myself. Three months is about the norm because they have to send the article to 2 or 3 reviewers for comments, wait for the returns before they can contact the author.

I'm about to start writing another paper so this has given me the kick I needed to get started.

It varies massively between fields - arts and humanities are often ridiculously slow (can be up to a year) but scientists and mathematicians tend to be snappier.

I don't see why you shouldn't contact the editor of the journal you're interested in and ask what the normal wait for that journal is - that wouldn't smack of hassling.

3 months is fairly typical I think. Mail the editor and ask them how long things normally take.

I'm an academic and in my field it can take up to 18 months, just when you are ready to move on and bin the work you thought was crap they come back to you. I hate it no knowing since in my place you get recognition by the publication quantity not the quality

3 months would not be excessive - it depends on the journal and discipline as others have said.

There would be no harm in asking about the status (i.e. has it been sent to reviewers? Waiting for editorial decision etc etc.)

Good luck (she says 3/4 of the way through one of her own).

In my field, I've found USA journals are increasingly posting up their turnaround time in their notes to contributors, and I got a straight answer (by email) from one that promised a turnaround of 12 weeks - they admitted they had a huge backlog, so I withdrew the paper at once. I prefer email AND hard copy submission - last year an editor 'lost' my hard copy, then asked me to resubmit e-copy, then sent me back my 'lost' hard copy, and so on. Gah!

psychology it took about three months, medicine seems to be a lot quicker. Email has speeded everything up.

In psychology/sociology journals I submit to it usually takes 6-12 m, once it took 6 weeks and the longest was 15 months (an American one, Gender and Society).

you can start hassling after about 6 months, but I haven't found it sped things up at all.

Agree that it depends what field it is in. Have found some medieval history journals that take up to 18 months. It will help if the journal is a)up to speed electronically and b)published by one of the big publishers, ie Elsevier or Taylor and Francis.
If they have an electronic system for reviewers to submit their reports this tends to be faster than the old-fashioned system (the medieval journal I mention above didn't even have an email address). Being published by one of the big publishers means that there will be staff inhouse chasing up the reviewers. Otherwise, a journal is dependent on a busy professor who is already doing too much.
I would think it highly unlikely that they are waiting for a meeting of the editorial board - most rarely if ever meet up, particularly if it is an international journal with editors from around the world.
I would email them if I were you asking when you might hear. It might also be that an email has got lost - which has happened to me in the past. I have been fuming about not hearing and the journal editor has been pissed off that I was not responding to her queries.
Remember also that journals rely on the good will of reviewers, all of whom will have full-time jobs in academia and none of whom will get paid for reviewing. To be frank, reviewing journal articles is nowhere near the top of my priorities at this time of term, and particularly in the last few months of the RAE process.
If you need to know any more about academic publishing, please ask - I lecture (and publish) in the subject.

"Being published by one of the big publishers means that there will be staff inhouse chasing up the reviewers"

this was absolutely not the case on the T&F hums journal I worked on - we (academic staff) had to do everything ourselves, with help from busy prof/editor's personal assistant. In fact we all spent a damn lot of time chasing T&F!

Libra did you ever see Meaghan Morris's long-ago article about publishing? Brilliant thing to give to postgrads.

Echo 3 month-ish for medical journals but they do seem to be getting better - have had responses in 3 weeks in some cases.

I agree with Droile about our field- 3 months would be actually unacceptably long for an answer in most medical journals nowadays. Many say they will give you an answer in 6 weeks, and I am increasingly asked to submit reviews within 7-10 days. I would just ask- most people do IME, and it might give them a nudge in the right direction. Good luck