with summer, i know many people are taking vacations, and not really diving into peer reviews as much buuuuut i was just wondering when is it time to email the editor for updates? i have one paper that’s been under review since early april, and another since mid april. i’m lowkey scared to email to not receive a rejection, but also i was thinking perhaps 4 months is a pretty long time? does anyone else experience this delay in the review process and if so, when do you reach out to the editors?
Hi Ece, that’s so annoying! Unless there was something in the journal’s website information (or in an initial email) indicating that timeframe could happen, I’d definitely reach out to ask. I think a simple question to ask how the process is going is fine, wouldn’t expect a rejection just because of that.
Good luck!
do you feel like you have an estimate amount of time to wait before reaching out?
Hum, I feel I don’t really have an estimate time in my head, but I’d say 4 months crossed the threshold for a quick email check 
I guess it also depends on how much communication you are receiving. It’s been a while since I submitted something to a journal, but I remember this one time that after 2/3 months of having the paper marked as sent for revision, we thought that was too much and sent a brief email to ask if there was any update. It turns out the problem was “only” that they had troubles finding reviewers and then one of them was overdue, and so they were still chasing this one reviewer to get everything to send to us. I guess this didn’t solve our problem but at least allowed us to understand better what was happening
I can share my experience regarding this, as I recently emailed an editor about a manuscript.
TL;DR: In my opinion, around 1.5 to 2 months.
I submitted a manuscript in March and, throughout the period until May, I dreaded sending the editor an email. It took me until May to finally send it. I was very polite and acknowledged that acting as a journal editor comes with many responsibilities and that people in these positions are usually very busy. Nonetheless, I asked whether there had been any technical delay, whether the manuscript had somehow been caught in “limbo,” or something along those lines.
To my surprise, the editor was having difficulty finding peer reviewers for my manuscript, and that was the reason for the delay. A note to myself: always send reviewer suggestions to editors.
After that email, everything went smoothly and was resolved quite quickly.
As the Editor of a leading journal in this field, I can confirm that reviewer non-responsiveness is a growing problem. For many articles, we now have to send out more than 20 invitations just to secure enough reviewers. Even among those who accept, a significant number never submit their feedback, forcing us to either chase them down or issue additional invitations, both of which cause further delays.
This is for sure frustrating for authors, but it’s equally challenging for handling editors. Striking the right balance between securing feedback from a reviewer with genuine expertise in the manuscript’s topic and scope, and doing so within a reasonable timeframe, is becoming increasingly difficult. 
This is such a valuable discussion to have, as the earlier you are in your career, the less experience you have to draw on, but the more each publication matters in developing your growing reputation!
From the author side of things, I am unfortunately one of those scare stories 
My first journal paper was in review for 6 months with no communication from the editor. I finally emailed in a careful way, and received a rejection based on a single review 
It had been held up waiting for more reviews, but my email prompted the editor to simply make a decision!
I will say that this is very unusual in comparison to the rest of my experience. I have had papers proceed normally within 2 to 6 months, and I have sent gentle emails which prompted the editor to find my paper which had got lost along the way. So I tend to agree with the advice here that after about 2 or 3 months, a gentle email is the right way to go.
It’s great to hear from @AmgadDroby from the other side of the fence too! It makes sense that editors are completely reliant on the responsiveness of the reviewers. So it’s good for your paper karma to do as many reviews as you can, provided you have the expertise and the time to do a reasonable job!
i should do another topic to get your insights on this too @AmgadDroby i’m newer to the editorial game and omigoodness. people don’t respond, noone accepts, even if they do accept they don’t send in their reviews. it’s a nightmare, i’ve basically been forcing my collabofriends including the peeps here (thanks to everyone who was willing to help out!!!) but it’s really sad. i completely feel the lack of time for everyone, i too feel like i have no time to do a thoughtful review and the journal system is not good at all, but still gotta push publications out somehow…
“collabofriends” 
Good word!
i feel you go through so much together during productive collaborations that it deserves a little friend sprinkle in there 