Hi,

Since reviewing an article is volunteering task, it is sometimes difficult for journals' editors to find a reviewer for a candidate paper, so it should be difficult for a journal to follow a timeline in this respect.

After an article submitted to a journal, it will go to several desks. Editor, reviewer, editor again, proofreading maybe, technical desk (layout, etc), and finally published. All of them need time. High quality journals give more details on the articles, and that consume more time. Moreover, high quality journals attract so many articles worldwide, make a long queue even to go to one desk.

Although it is frustrating to experience lengthy delays in the reviewing process, your question shows a misunderstanding of the typical reasons for the delay. It is not uncommon for several, or even many researchers to be approached with an invitation to review a manuscript. These potential reviewers may or may not take the time to respond. When they do not, it is inevitable that a delay of several weeks will be introduced, and for each reviewer who fails to answer invitations, weeks are added to the time taken to review a paper.

Typically, the most prominent researchers in any field will be approached dozens of times in one week with invitations to review manuscripts, give talks and join editorial boards – the correspondence is overwhelming – even without responding to all requests. I often take the time to point out to researchers in this category that the most significant way that they could assist the scientific community in the face of an overwhelming number of requests would be to review one or two papers less, instead, suggesting other potential reviewers, seeking to include young researchers whose names might not have appeared in databases. Such an approach spreads the burden and enables the journals to broaden their potential list of suitable reviewers. In the time taken to review one paper, one could make a dozen recommendations, perhaps more.

As a general rule, though, as two reviews are required for the acceptance of a manuscript, and sometimes a third opinion needs to be sought, if one is to take on one’s own fair share of the burden, then for every paper published, one should aim to review at least two papers.

Where the time taken to review a paper is concerned, though, it is important to understand the origin of the delay: when an invitation to review is sent out, the journal’s management system will await await a response, if this dies not arrive, a reminder will be sent, and then it will prompt journal staff to ask for fresh suggestions. A certain amount of time must be allowed for each of these stages, however if the person approached does not respond at all, four weeks could already have passed before the next invitation is issued. If the research community is keen to see a reduction in the time taken to review papers, then sending a note declining invitations would address this – it need only say that the author is too busy, that the paper is not relevant to the author’s experience, or it could take the form of a suggestion of a more suitable reviewer or reviewers, preferably including the names of some younger researchers who might help to spread the burden of reviewing. If everyone were to decline invitations that they have no intention of taking up, the time taken to review papers could decrease enormously. Having said this, the publishing houses are increasingly sloppy over their choice of reviewers and the invitations sent out. When one is inundated with inappropriate and often absurd suggestions with such regularity that it has become irritating, it is inevitable that publishing houses will destroy the community’s goodwill to assist them. I do not and will not respond to any invitations to review papers in medicine as I have never published a medical paper, have no expertise in this area and feel that any publishing house that includes names at random in its database deserves to fail – I cannot imagine the origin of these invitations.

I hope this is helpful in providing a little insight to help you to understand the delays. You could reduce the delay to publication by making sure that your paper is submitted to a journal where papers with a similar degree of novelty are published, as well as considering the nature of the research to identify the appropriate topical journal.

Finally, in addition to the above, I would suggest that you take advantage of the arXiv – it exists to bring publications to the attention of potential readers, or post your preprints to ResearchGate.