In our July “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

I’ve had a number of papers recently where after sitting “under review” for some time, they switch back to “reviewers assigned”, often for a long time. It has become enough of a trend that I was wondering if editors are having a problem with reviewers failing to produce reviews or dropping out of the process after having agreed to provide a review? Or is this just some quirk of the manuscript management software that doesn’t necessarily mean anything? I am asking mostly out of curiosity about general trends behind the scenes, and less so about my particular situation.

I’ve always wondered about this too and have speculated that it could be any of a number of things, ranging from the cases the OP mentions to editors seeking out a third reviewer after a split verdict with two reviewers.

Do any readers have any insights to share?

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One response to “When a paper’s status from “under review” to “reviewers assigned””

  1. Anonymous

    I’d also love to know. I recently had a paper at Synthese switch back and forth between “under review” and “reviewers assigned” for several months, only to be desk rejected eventually. I found that pretty baffling, and it certainly made me wonder whether these status labels correspond in any reliable way to what is actually happening editorially.

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