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. 