Getting to "under review"

As editor of the journal Politics and Religion, I routinely get inquiries from authors wanting to know the status of their manuscript. That's no problem. I'm happy to provide updates. 

In the last week, however, several authors have written to ask why their manuscripts still appears as "With Editor" and not "Under Review" in Editorial Manager. One author even withdrew their manuscript, because they thought we were taking too long. In light of that, I thought it would be helpful to explain what happens when you submit your piece to Politics and Religion (PAR).

We don't immediately send manuscripts out for review. Here's what happens.

1. ​​Our editorial assistant reads each manuscript to ensure that it is anonymous and conforms with basic editorial guidelines. 
2. The editorial assistant prepares a short memo for the editors. The memo includes the following information: manuscript length; whether the manuscript was previously submitted to PAR; whether the author has published similar work elsewhere or at PAR; authors’ place of education, employment, and recent co-authors and collaborators. 
3. The assigned editor reads the memo and manuscript and then solicits reviewers.

All of this takes time--especially if there's been a spike in submissions--but we think it's worth it. My fellow editors (Mehmet Gurses and Nicholas Tampio) and I use this information to ensure that 1) we are reviewing original contributions and that 2) we don't inadvertently ask a co-author or grad school colleague to review someone's manuscript. Having all this information in hand helps us select reviewers fairly and more efficiently. And even with all the prep work, our mean time to a first decision is about 60 days.

The bottom line is that it will be at least a couple of weeks before manuscripts go out to reviewers. Rest assured, however, that we're working on your manuscript in ways that aren't obvious just by looking at your Editorial Manager status. I'm still happy to answer author inquiries. Just thought this might provide some helpful context to the review process. 

PS -- Our editorial assistants are amazing and don't get enough credit. The current assistant is Hope Dewell Gentry. She was preceded by Amy Friesenhahn and Elliot Montagano. All are graduate students in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Texas. 

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