The editor will first evaluate the merits of the paper and will decide whether or not to move your paper forward to an associate editor (AE). This process should take roughly two weeks, but may take longer.
If your paper passes the editor's desk, it will be assigned to an AE whose scholastic area of expertise best aligns with your research topic. Under certain circumstances (e.g., the paper topic falls outside all of the AE’s scholastic areas of expertise), your paper may be assigned to an action editor with strong research expertise on your paper topic.
The AE will be responsible for identifying prospective reviewers for your paper. This process typically takes up to 2 weeks, but may take longer.
The AE will do her/his best to try to complete this process in a timely manner with the goal of maintaining a timeline of 6–8 weeks for each manuscript during the first round of review.
The AE will seek two to three reviewers to evaluate your paper. Sometimes a fourth reviewer may be called upon for additional expertise (e.g., as a statistical consultant).
Please keep in mind that there are several factors beyond an AE's control that can cause unexpected delays. For one, reviewers can be difficult to find and sometimes they do not respond to our invitation to review. For another, some reviewers agree to evaluate a manuscript but then fail to follow through with their review. Also, some reviewers agree to evaluate a manuscript but then at the beginning or midway through the process, they ask for extended time to submit their evaluation.
These are some of the common occurrences which may unfortunately lengthen the review time.
Yes, but in the event that reviewers are able to identify the authors by looking at where the data was collected, we will ask reviewers to inform us of any conflicts of interest.
We also ask that you omit any identifying information (e.g., citation(s) and reference(s) that give away the names of authors associated with the data) in your manuscript before submitting your paper for review.
For example, instead of Logan & Grey (2018), use Authors (2018).
If all of the reviewers evaluate the manuscript favorably, there is a reasonable possibility that the authors will be invited to revise and resubmit their paper. However, if all of the reviewers evaluate the manuscript unfavorably, there is a strong possibility that the authors will not be given an opportunity to revise and resubmit their paper.
Sometimes the reviewers' comments and recommendations are inconsistent with each other. When this occurs, the AE decides whether an editorial decision of revise and resubmit is warranted.
Please note that our AEs work diligently to select strong reviewers to evaluate each manuscript. Thus, in the spirit of the peer-review process, the expert evaluation of each reviewer is seriously considered in the editorial decision making process.
You will have up to 60 days to resubmit your paper. We do not typically grant extensions, but under unique circumstances, we might consider an extension request.
We do not typically grant increased word limits. We recognize that this restriction is daunting because reviewers may ask for additional texts and analyses.
We recommend you consult with the AE for guidance on what areas of your paper can be pruned to make room for key points that the reviewers may raise.
Once you resubmit your manuscript, it will likely undergo a second round of review.
In some cases, the AE may elect not to send the manuscript back out for review because the authors have sufficiently addressed all of the reviewers' concerns. In most cases, however, the AE will invite the same reviewers to evaluate the manuscript a second time.
Please note that some reviewers will only agree to evaluate the paper during the first round of reviews and as such, finding a replacement reviewer will add more time to the review process. When this occurs, we evaluate each situation individually and do our best to minimize further delays.
Please note that an invitation to revise and resubmit does not guarantee eventual acceptance of your paper. Sometimes papers are rejected after the first round of reviews. This is often due to the authors' failure to address all of the AE's and reviewers' comments during the initial round of reviews.
Please note that after the first round of revisions, the AE and/or reviewers may see other flaws in the paper that was not evident in the initial round of reviews.
Unless there are remaining issues such as new findings that emerged from reanalysis of the data, your paper will not likely be sent out again for review if the AE determines that you have addressed all of the reviewers' comments and concerns.
