I second the previous speaker's remarks. There is no quick route to becoming good at anything, really; you need to think very hard what you want to write about, in a way that you actually present something NEW and nicely written, such that someone other than you and the reviewers will read it. It should also be a paper on a timely subject in your field, and in order to know what is timely you need to study the already existing journal papers in the field. Have you heard of the 10,000 hour rule? It basically says that almost whatever you want to do well, you need that many hours of practice to do it perfectly. A tennis player needs that amount of practice, as well as a piano player, or a mathematician. Again: there is no shortcut!

Honestly, I find such questions asking about how to get paper published rapidly - even in good journals - quite fantastical because I do not believe it is possible. How can it be indeed? While it takes time for authors to structure a simple paper regardless of length and subject areas, it also takes time for editors and reviewers to review your paper; that's why the overall process is just concomitant. Anyway, wishing you good luck!

I second the previous speaker's remarks. There is no quick route to becoming good at anything, really; you need to think very hard what you want to write about, in a way that you actually present something NEW and nicely written, such that someone other than you and the reviewers will read it. It should also be a paper on a timely subject in your field, and in order to know what is timely you need to study the already existing journal papers in the field. Have you heard of the 10,000 hour rule? It basically says that almost whatever you want to do well, you need that many hours of practice to do it perfectly. A tennis player needs that amount of practice, as well as a piano player, or a mathematician. Again: there is no shortcut!

Dear @Michael Patriksson, you made an excellent comment!

Regards,

Hulya

Though the previous answers are relevant "by themselves", I do not really think they address the problem raised in the original question... Many journals exist and some have a quicker publishing process than others. It regularly happens for example that you can get an answer from reviewers for the journal Nature in less than a month after submission, while for others it takes 6 to 8 months or even longer.

What I personally find strange is the fact that it can take 6 months for a person to review an article, it certainly does not take that much time for me to assess the scientific contribution of an article and I am just an average scientist (and not the fastest by far). I actually doubt that anyone can stay up to date in his own field by taking so much time to read and understand a scientific paper...

Back to the question of the OP: I doubt that people will give you straight public answers for that, experience will give you hints about the efficiency of editors of the different journals in your field. An important factor is the good will of the reviewers and this is a pretty random factor (probably mitigated by the competence of the editor in choosing such reviewers and pushing them but I believe this is a pretty difficult job all in all).

With the followings links, you can find the appropriate journals with desirable decision time for your paper in Elsevier and Springer publishers:

Elsevier :

https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

Springer :

https://journalsuggester.springer.com/

Better to use Elsavir journal finder and springer journal finder

https://journalsuggester.springer.com/

https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

If you were to add the fact that there are other things in life than refereeing papers, then you would understand why a manuscript on your desk has to lie there for a couple of Months or more, until your more urgent matters - such as your life outside of work, your teaching duties, your own research, the crucial coffee breaks, and so on, are done. You do not have more than a fraction of the 24 hours of a day to do those duties, and that goes for all of us.

The other thing is that the journals that guarantee a fast turn-around time are pretty lousy, most of them - they typically have a very shallow refereeing system, and then they take your money. It's not advisable to publish in those shady journals, as they may in fact not be counted as real journal papers. I would not like to be the PhD student who composes a series of papers based on these 24h refereeing rounds, gets them published, and yet - in the end - your dissertation is flunked!

My advise is to go for traditional journals - always.

The best advise is to ask a senior for advice - in your own narrow field there might be natural choices to make.

Michael Patriksson thank you for your advice and recommendation.

The question is quite relevant because there are few journals whose processing time is even more than a year.

I have not checked other publishers, but Elsevier has mentioned average time taken by their various journals from submission till acceptance, which makes it easier for the author to decide accordingly. Here is the list specifically about civil engineering journals..

https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-civil-and-structural-engineering

Dear Amer, i will suggest Construction and Building Materials.

Good luck!

You can try in JMRT

I think Elsevier and Springer should add the feature of Publishing speed in their respective journal's page.

The time between submission and publication depends on the reviewers. Also, fast or quickly in this case is relative. How many months will be fast or quick for you?

I think you should try Construction and Building Materials journal. You may check the period to publication on a few of their publications to determine for yourself if it's fast enough. Good luck!

The speed of acceptance your publication may also depend on the journal's peer review process as well as how fast and well you respond to reviewers comments/corrections.

Try Periodica Polytechnica Civil Engineering

Dear, you can try in MDPI journals.

Construction and Building Materials journal -Free publication

MDPI journals- Paid publication

In any case, avoid the worthless open access-only journals that just take your money and do not even read your manuscript. There are hundreds of those. Talk with more than one trusted scholar before you make your choice. And remember that rejection is not all bad - you will most probably receive good advise on what to adjust in your writing. Good Luck!

Amer, every Elsevier journal has onfo on time of firts decision. Check/compare the values. Secondly select 2-3journals tha fit to your paper and review the pdf's there is provided whole timeline for the.manuscript. submitted/revised/accepted.

Regards

GB

Why the focus on speed of publications? Nowadays your accepted manuscript will be uploaded to the journal's site quite quickly - before it has been allocated an issue. Back in the late 80s we had plenty more to do in order to get the accepted manuscript in shape, marking essential mistakes from the typesetters at the publishing house, for example. And everything was done by snail mail.

JoVE now has a streamlined process and is able to publish your paper in approximately 2 months. Go to JoVE.com/publish to contact an editor

To me I think two Months is far, far too little, if we start counting from the day the manuscript was received. First someone on the editorial looks at a manuscript, checks what discipline it should be sorted into, and files it into that "box" of manuscripts. Second it is sent to the area editor nearest the discipline of the paper. When the area editor has a nice pile she/he will go through them, and provide a verdict on immediate reject, revise and submit, or - for a few manuscripts - proceed to give it to the area editor for the more narrow discipline, so that it can be offered to peer review. Some will decline outright, other will read it and decide whether it fits with her/his discipline, and also if she/has time.

All of this will - clock-time - take several days at least, perhaps a few weeks, depending how busy the scientists are, or how often they read e-mails. And some will reject the offer after a few days, changing their minds. A whole series of decisions are made by quite a few, before - hopefully - the submitted manuscript can be delivered through the internet for scrutiny. The actual reviewing part is typically the longest, of course, for very natural reasons: it takes time to read complex stuff that you have not seen in the first place, then you also have a deadline of sorts for providing the review. And they will be perhaps 2, perhaps 4, who read it.

So let's say that they now are ready: they submit their criticism - positive and negative - including lots and lots of reasons for changes: errors, suggested restructuring, complaints about the handling of the language, for missing to cite and discuss published papers that are central to the topic, such as those that are quite near what the current manuscript write about - or not write about. And they will have conflicting verdicts, too, meaning that the board have to balance the reviewers' comments when you submit your decision to the editorial office!

The verdict is either reject, revise-and-resubmit, revise, or accept, and since it is quite seldom that a paper is accepted immediately, you should realise that this is something that will take a long time - at least 3-4 Months, if not more - if the journal is a very good one. Because, you see, the reviewers are also busy with other stuff - like their own research! :-)

I think I will stop there. "And I shall say this only once!" (Remember 'Allo, 'Allo?)

So: a serious review and first verdict may need to take around half a year!

With either Elsevier or Springer journals (deemed as the best ones), a fast publication will never take less than 3 months in best case scenario. So if you decide to submit your manuscript to one of these journals you should expect around 6 months (if all goes well) for a paper to appear online. For further information visit the journal's website.

Finding reviewers is not an easy job; it might take months to complete the first review. However, rejection at the editorial level might come with a response within 10-14 days.

Me you advice the journal : '' Construction and bouilding materials '' or '' Archives of civil and mechanical engineering''. Good courage.

There is no reputable journal or scope indexed journal that would be faster than 6month from the date of initial submission