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Journals with quick turnaround times?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I'm wondering if there is a list somewhere with journals known for a relatively quick review and decision process (lower-tier journals also if indexed). Alternatively, I am wondering if anyone could share relevant anecdotes mentioning the journals, providing alternatives to horror story journals. This could be very useful for people pressed for time (on the job market or trying to meet tenure/promotion/grant funding requirements in time).

Good query! There's this crowdsourced table, which I've always found useful–but I don't know how accurate or updated it is. My sense is that things can and do change at various journals, with some once known for quick turnaround times slowing down, and vice versa. So I think it could be good to hear from readers about their recent experiences.

Which journals have you had good review times and decision processes with? Please note that the OP didn't just ask about top-ranked journals; they are interested in "lower-tier" journals too!

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18 responses to “Journals with quick turnaround times?”

  1. philosophia

    I have not published in the journal philosophia, but I have been asked to be a referee for them. I know that they give their referees a very short window to complete the report (I want to some something like two weeks if I’m remembering correctly). Their website also says that their median time from submission to decision is 16 days.

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  2. Ergo submitter

    Ergo is so awesome. When you have a paper submitted you can see when referees were contacted and when and what they responded, and then you can see the referee reports as soon as they’re sent in. It was really encouraging for me to be able to read a positive review from the first referee while I waited for the second referee report to come in.

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  3. fwiw

    My experience with Ergo was good (rejected but quick turn around time). Same thing with Ratio and Analysis (which is good for shorter papers). If you’re looking to publish in Phil religion, Religious Studies is run very well, in my experience. Generally, I’ve found that the ‘fancier’ the journal, the longer things can take. But there are exceptions to this I’m sure.

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  4. Samuel Elgin

    The fastest turnaround time I’ve ever had was from the Journal of Philosophical Logic. As I recall, I waited on the order of 2-3 weeks before receiving an R&R – so fast that, when I saw that I had received an email from the journal, I fully expected a desk-rejection. I think that the full time between initial submission and acceptance (including time I spent revising the paper) was on the order of 6-8 weeks.

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  5. Sam Duncan

    I’ll add my votes for Ergo and Analysis though I’ve never gotten anything but rejections from either. The Journal of the APA is also good as is the Southern Journal of Philosophy. Honestly, SJP is great. I’ve submitted a lot there and never waited over 8 weeks for a decision. If you don’t need tipp top prestige they might be the first place I’d say you should try. For specialist journals: The British Journal for the History of Philosophy is good as is Religious Studies as another poster mentioned. If you have a history paper then I’d start with BJHP. They’re also pretty pluralist in what they publish these days. The Journal of Political Philosophy used to be lightning quick and decent comments back in the day so I’d imagine the successor journal Goodin is editing is as well (I forget the name). The Journal of Applied Philosophy also has decent turnaround times. Public Affairs Quarterly used to, but I get the general impression the new editorial team may not be as good as the old so I’m not sure I’d chance it if I needed a quick turnaround.

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  6. Niles Crane

    I can also confirm that Ergo is great in this respect. I have had two papers rejected there recently, but both were rejected in about a month and the referee reports were helpful in both cases. In my experience, Imprint has a quick turnaround as well, although I often don’t get comments from them. Over the last year I’ve found that some of the journals that used to be pretty quick (e.g., Phil Studies and Australasian) are taking a lot longer. The Sosa journals also seem to have a longer waiting period than they did in the past. I’ve heard others say similar, for what it’s worth.

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  7. +1

    Seconding the BJHP recommendation for history.

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  8. Some others

    Purely personal experience, but I’ve had really good experiences with Synthese and Inquiry (I once had an accept from them within 2 weeks!).
    I agree with others that Ergo is really excellently run, but just to give a slightly different experience specifically about their turnaround times. My experience with them was very fast if my paper didn’t make it past their initial review (what they call ‘Rejection Without External Review’ took no more than a month). If my paper made it past that stage, then just my experience was that it took ages – at least 4/5 months. Perhaps not the same for others though. And this is not to deny the excellent features they have like the ones others have mentioned, and worth nothing that all the reports I’ve got, either from editors or from external reviewers, have been excellent from them.

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  9. ergo info

    I am one of very many area editors for Ergo and I just wanted to mention that I think in part because it’s gotten a reputation for being fast and giving helpful comments, people on average seem to submit significantly worse quality papers than the other, roughly equal in prestige, journal I have done editorial work for. (This doesn’t affect the quality of what gets published since there are always some gems too!)
    I just wanted to mention that people should read the actual editorial policies (https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/site/peer-review/) and notice that we desk reject the vast majority of papers (it says 2/3 here, but I believe it is significantly higher now). So: send your good papers to Ergo, but don’t use it as a comments/feedback machine because you will likely not receive comments or feedback (or will only receive minimal feedback from the editor) if you do.

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  10. data point

    I’m not sure what people’s definition of quick is, but as a small data point: over the past couple years I’ve had four things under review at the “Sosa Journals” and each took between 3-4 months, which seems in keeping with their previous timeline. However, my experience may be anomalous, just wanted to mention it.

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  11. Wanttoknow

    “Sosa journals” came up a few times in the thread. Which are these?

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  12. Sosa journals

    Nous and PPR (the ones edited by Sosa)

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  13. Daniel Weltman

    In addition to the table Marcus mentioned there’s this website that collates information about response times: https://apasurvey.philx.org (although I don’t think it’s super up to date). It would be awesome if all the philosophy journals got together and put their data into one of these two things or whatever, rather than relying on crowdsourcing. Maybe something that could someday be coordinated by PhilPapers.
    To add a bit more data on stuff people have been discussing, four days ago Ergo desk rejected a paper I submitted five days ago, and five days ago PPR desk rejected a paper I submitted March 10th. The paper I submitted to Ergo is one I have submitted or intend to submit to other good journals, so I don’t think I’ve fallen prey to the mindset @ergo info describes, insofar as it’s an actual mindset some people have fallen prey to. (I would be interested in hearing, @ergo info, if you are or have been an area editor for any other journals too, or if you’re basing your judgment merely on what you’ve seen as an editor for Ergo.)

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  14. APA Survey Defender

    Just wanted to chime in to second the recommendation of the APA Survey site Daniel shared above. It’s not inactive; it gets maybe 50 reports a week. But it could certainly stand to be more active, so do your civic duty & share your journal response times!

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  15. ergo info

    @Daniel Weltman yes, as I said, I have editorial experience at a different journal.
    Also: did not mean to suggest that if anyone’s paper gets desk rejected from Ergo, it means it is crappy! Officially want to cancel any implicature of that kind!

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  16. grad student

    I recently had a very good experience with philosophical psychology: 2 months for the first round, 1 month for the second round, and 1 week for online publication after acceptance. It might be good for people in the x-phi, philosophy of mind, etc. circle.
    Also, I recently had a bad experience with Philosophical Studies, and some people around me say the same thing.

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  17. Elizabeth

    A few years ago now but I got a R&R with comments from Utilitas in less than 2 weeks. Political Philosophy is fast as always. I’ve only ever had long waits (3+ months) from JMP and JESP and even t hose were in the 4-5 month range.

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  18. HN

    I got review reports in two months from Synthese, Episteme, Philosophy and Technology, and Phil Psychology. Philosophical exploration was also fast but that experience is already a year and a half old now.
    AI and Society did not even send my paper for review for 9 months.
    I have reviewed for the Journal of Applied Philosophy and can say that they give a month to review and send lots of reminders to the reviewers. I think they must be fast too.

    Reply

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