Is it normal to wait for a year after submitting to a journal only to have your article rejected? I I didn't experience anything as such. To me, this is a too long while.

• Referees are unpaid, and so the work is at the bottom of the in-box.
• It takes time to check out the references, and to assess the work.
• Nine months is the average time to see you work in print or be rejected.
• Ask whether your work was important. If so, polish it and resubmit, perhaps elsewhere.

Romelyn - as Ian suggests, it is quite normal. If say three reviewers are required and two respond quickly - usually their reviews will still not be released until the final reviewer submits. The attached chapter covers generic principles on disseminating research findings - mainly devoted to journals. The section on 'being patient' and dealing with editors/reviewers is perhaps quite relevent to your question. Good luck with future submissions.

I do not think it is normal, although I have experienced it. What I try to do is to look for information of time from submission to first decision. It is very important so you do not seem to be wasting your time. This also discourages the practice of trying to be smart by submitting one manuscript to say three journals. Finding a reviewer for your paper is another possible reason for the delay but it does not rule out the point made by Ian. It's usually painful, but try a little patience like Dean said. After all, good things do not come easily to us.

To figure "What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?", visit:

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55665/what-does-the-typical-workflow-of-a-journal-look-like

Reviewers not not paid and there is a great deal of variation on how quickly a reviewer finishes the review job. Thus it should not be surprising that it may take a year. Other factors include the review process flow including how many articles are getting submitted to that journal, how specialized the paper topic is and so on

The longest I've waited to find out that my submission was ultimately rejected was 6 months.

A year seems unusual, even given the fact that it can take time to get a sufficient number of reviews back. As a reviewer, I am usually given a 1-2 month window to review, with the editor then sending reminders. (And one journal I review for will pull the review request if it is slowing the process down.)

To have waited a full year suggests that they may have had some difficulty getting two reviewers or perhaps they wanted a third reviewer to break a tie and that delayed the process even more.

Is it normal to wait for a year after submitting to a journal only to have your article rejected? I I didn't experience anything as such. To me, this is a too long while.

No never. Everyone should boycott such Journals!

Name and shame?

Though it depends on the journal’s review policy, typically it is not normal to get the final decision to the author in a year. You would hear from the editor within 4 months maximum. No one writes just for the sake of it: editors know that authors need the publication for their professional advancement. If there’s no response, contact them directly. I disagree with Ian that reviewers are unpaid, thus they do not behave as responsibly: reviewers need the review as much as the author needs the publication for professional advancement/promotion (and tenure). They also need it for their own professional development. Many journals use their data analytics to get feedback on reviewers’ turn around

time, depth of review, etc. If a reviewer is repeatedly late in review submission, they may find themselves out of the review team.

Maria D. Avgerinou I did not say reviewers are irresponsible. On the contrary. They are just too busy. So Unpaid-for-work goes to the bottom of the pile.

My policy is that if I have not heard anything back from a journal in three month, I sent a polite inquiry about the status to the editor.

Definitely not! If I get no notice within one month I ask editor, and after 3 months I withdraw my submitted paper.

In that case the problem is not with the author or authors, but with the magazine, the editorial board.

I had a paper presented at an international scientific conference. Published in conference proceedings but not in their journal. Here at RG is my most read.

It is not normal, of course. When submitting a preprint you need to check their deadlines for their procedures.

Unfortunately, many journals nowadays are only interested in promoting publications of a selected group of authors that have connections with the editors. Too many inept people working in science.

Ian Kennedy so paid work gets at the top of the file, while unpaid, voluntary work finds itself consciously at the bottom. and you call that responsible and professional behaviour? with all due respect, that's odd to me.

The reviewers expecting a certain standard/quality/level of the submitted manuscript for to be published. They trying their best to to push the authors to improve the quality of the paper according to their limit. Accordingly, if the authors do not handling the matter responsibly, the editor/reviewers have than no other option but to reject.

This is not normal. However, there are several things to consider when writing a paper. First, you have to choose the journal in which you want to submit your paper.

Elsevier offers a service allowing researchers to properly select journals for the submission of their work.

https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

It is for the researcher of "Enter title and abstract of your paper to easily find journals that could be best suited for publishing. JournalFinder uses smart search technology and field-of-research specific vocabularies to match your paper to scientific journals".

Indeed, identifying a journal to complete the writing of an article before its submission is very important in a process of scientific dissemination of research results. This identification will invite the researcher to read the guide to the authors of the review, to read the papers published in this review on his research theme and to cite some of these papers.

The second element to consider is the magazine itself. I always tell my students to consider the impact factor and the CiteScore of journals in which they wish to submit their papers. Today, journals with significant scientific influence inform authors in their presentation of the maximum time they take to publish an article.

Make variations of your paper by keeping the central theme same but changing dataset or comparative analysis, and submit all these variations to multiple journals at the same time. Chances of acceptance (or at least getting major revision opportunities) could be improved in this manner.

It is true that the work of the reviewers is not paying, although it must be emphasized that the publishing house MDPI (a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access journals) gives a voucher of 50 Swiss francs to the reviewers by peer pre-publication. However, we must admit today that Publons (the largest platform of peer reviewers in the world) allows journals to recognize and value the work of reviewers (www.publons.com).

PUBLONS, through the services of PUBLONS ACADEMY, offers PhD students and young researchers the opportunity to train not only in the profession of peer review, but also in the writing of scientific articles. I invite you to explore the opportunities offered by PUBLONS ACADEMY.

The review should give you the reasons why your paper was rejected. She should send you reviewers' comments. It is important that you take the time necessary to read and re-read these comments. You will then have to review your paper, taking into account the comments of the reviewers. Then, you will use the information available on https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/ to choose a review.

The choice, once made, it will be necessary to read the notes to the authors in order to format your paper according to the publication requirements of the chosen journal.

It is a normal situation in any academic life. But to avoid falling in such a bad experience with a journal, I suggest to check the background of the journal and see the number of papers rejected if the precentage high like 90% and above don’t take the risk, especially if the period of waiting is one year. Other thing to check is the number of issues published through a year. Choose those journals of four issues per year with three or four months of waiting for publishing.

In my experience, a year is too long. I usually write to the journal asking if everything is ok when six months have passed since I submitted. I have had different answers, among them, they forgot to send my paper to reviewers. So write to them, ask what is going on.

In my own opinion, I think it is wrong for any journal Editor-in-Chief/Editor who is also an active researcher and knows the efforts we put in research and the significance of scientific outcome of such research to tie down an article for one year, only when the author(s) ask for the status of their work they quickly declare rejection. It is not fair at all.

I encountered two times the same status. It is not good value for the related journal...

One year is a normal practice. My paper was sent back from a journal after almost five years without any review.