In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:
I recently had an R&R from a good journal after slightly longer than 3 months. The comments in both reports were very minor: one suggestion each, and they were both immediately fixable. I fixed them and returned the revision within a week. It has now been about two months (so it most likely went back to the reviewers), and this made me think about the turnaround time and check-in norms regarding fairly minor R&R’s. Since I only made two paragraphs worth of change, it seems plausible to me that this would take a much shorter review time — both that it would not take nearly as much time to secure referees, and that it would be much easier to check whether the revisions meet the points raised in the reports than to do an initial assessment. So it’s taking longer than I had thought.
Am I missing any respect of the review process? More specifically, and in general: should one expect R&R’s to take about as long as every other new submission? Perhaps people can share their anecdotal evidence that confirms or disconfirms this. And if so, is it generally considered acceptable to check-in about R&R’s sooner than one would in cases of new submissions? Many thanks.
I’ve had experiences like this for conditional acceptances. They made me anxious but always worked out okay in the end. I suspect part of the explanation may be that referees are simply given a normal deadline by journals for sending in their reports. Alternatively, it could be that the editor has received the report already but for one reason or another is taking time to reach a decision.
Do any readers have any helpful insights?
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