Manuscript how long

Not ready for edit? Your manuscript may need to be tightened up before submitting it to our professional editing service. Tweet this. Here's a free downloadable checklist to help you identify whether your manuscript is ready for edit. Leave this field blank. First Name. Send me the bonus! Hold tight Thank you! What may not be obvious to your stale eyes is clear as a bell when you hear it with fresh ears.

What to do instead? Join a writing community. You Have a Prologue You know how we talked about killing your darlings? Subscribe Hold tight You might also like Are you unsure about whether to submit your manuscript for a professional edit? In this post, we discuss the benefits of It is advisable to break down the review and respond to each point, to ensure that you address all of the issues and that your responses are clear and accessible to the reviewers. It can be quite tempting to respond to reviewers immediately, especially if they have leveled serious criticism or attempted to identify flaws in your manuscript.

However, it is generally advisable to take a few days after reading the review to digest it and consider a calm and balanced response. It is critical that your responses be specific and to-the-point, and not personal, even if you felt the original review was not constructive, or even mean-spirited. Scholars who succeed tend to know how to embrace the positive parts of reviews and feedback that help them sharpen their arguments while rejecting feedback that they disagree with or deem irrelevant.

On average, it takes six months from the time you submit your manuscript until you receive a concrete decision across all academic fields. Even if your article is accepted, it then takes an average of another six months before it is published. Many submissions will take far longer, and having a manuscript sit with a publisher for over a year is not uncommon. My recommendation? Put the article aside until you hear back, and move on to other research projects in the meantime.

How can you do this? Consider always having several studies on your plate:. While this is an ideal you may not be able to reach, the idea is not to get stuck waiting for a response on one particular article. Some journals are very good at communicating with authors and will let you know exactly at what stage of the process your review is, while others are less responsive.

Many journals have digitized their processes and you can log in to your profile to view the status of your project. Keep in mind that because reviewers generally work voluntarily, they do not always make reviews their highest priority and may push them off due to more pressing demands. Having your article rejected can be a difficult experience if you have invested hundreds if not thousands of hours, devoting considerable mental energy to conceptualizing, conducting, and writing the research.

One editor of a respected academic press shared with me that he recently turned down proposals from two Nobel Prize laureates! In addition, studies also show that submissions that are initially rejected are ultimately more successful as measured by the impact factor of the articles in both categories than those that are accepted after the first submission.

There are many reasons why your submission may have been rejected. Sometimes it is related to the research itself, while at other times, there are external factors affecting the decision-making process.

In many cases, you will never know the real reason your article was rejected, but being aware of the varied considerations that journals take into account can help you accept their decision and move forward. Here are some of the most common reasons journals have for rejecting an article:. There is often a temptation to argue with the editor and explain why they are mistaken. Although in certain cases this may actually bear fruit, understand that there are often numerous other journals that could potentially be interested in your research.

Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself whether perhaps the article was rejected due to inherent issues with the research, or for any of a myriad of other reasons some of which have been mentioned above.

Receiving a rejection is not the end of the road. Continue plugging away and eventually you will find the right forum. The review and publication process can be taxing for authors. Maintaining your well-being is important during this period. For many junior scholars, this is the first time experiencing an outright rejection of their ideas, which can be quite a shock.

Try to join a community of scholars at similar points in their careers so that you can share advice, experiences, and even failures. Moreover, always remember that your research is a journey that will take you to many unexpected places. By embracing the process, you may discover new horizons and opportunities. Of course, this could potentially happen, but it is extremely rare.

In fact, if you do receive a direct acceptance without any feedback whatsoever, you may want to double-check that the forum you are submitting to is legitimate and not a predatory publisher. Step 1 — Desk Review by the Journal Editor In most cases, after your manuscript is submitted, it undergoes an initial review by one of the journal editors. Indeed, some journals will accept the manuscript and perform subsequent editing or instead require the author to complete the editing process.

Then, an invoice for the publishing fees is submitted to the corresponding author, which is subsequently paid prior to journal formatting. Once paid, the journal performs typesetting and manuscript proof development, which are approved by the editorial staff and proof management staff prior to being returned to the authors for review.

Finally, the proofs are reviewed by the authors involved in the study. Any requested corrections are returned to the journal until proof approval is granted. At this stage, the manuscript will often be published online in advance and, in some cases, in print. Weeks or months later, the manuscript information is transferred to PubMed or other central repositories for indexing.

This general timeline varies by journal, the length of the peer review process, and uniqueness of each manuscript. Furthermore, various journals often have status descriptions that indicate the step that the manuscript is at during the review and publication process. Once your manuscript is submitted to a journal, it is important to keep the manuscript number handy!

It will be used to track your manuscript through the peer review process and provide any other updates regarding your manuscript status. Enago Academy, the knowledge arm of Enago, offers comprehensive and up-to-date resources on academic research and scholarly publishing to all levels of scholarly professionals: students, researchers, editors, publishers, and academic societies.

It is also a popular platform for networking, allowing researchers to learn, share, and discuss their experiences within their network and community. The team, which comprises subject matter experts, academicians, trainers, and technical project managers, are passionate about helping researchers at all levels establish a successful career, both within and outside academia. Things to Consider Before Submitting a Manuscript.