How long journal publication really takes

How long does journal publication take?

Suppose you send a well-prepared paper to an indexed journal that suits it. Roughly, expect these times.

• Submission to first decision: roughly one to four months.
• Submission to acceptance: commonly three to eight months. Sometimes longer, mainly with two or more revision rounds.
• Acceptance to online publication: commonly two to eight weeks.

Research on publishing delays support ranges like these. A widely cited study is Björk and Solomon (2013). They took a sample of 2,700 papers from 135 journals and found big gaps between fields. In business and economics the average delay from submission to publication was about 18 months. Chemistry was roughly 9 months, so half of that. Since then publishing has become faster in some areas, mostly because of online-first publication. Still the broad pattern holds. Science and medicine move faster, and social sciences and humanities move slower.

Stage by stage: where the time goes

In the table one paper goes through a typical indexed journal, stage after stage. Notice how much of the total time is in stages you can’t control. What exactly to do at each stage is there in our step-by-step publishing guide.

The stage people underestimate: finding reviewers

Mostly the reviewers are academics only, and they get nothing for this work. They do it in between their own work. Many times an editor has to invite several people before two of them agree. Even after agreeing, a reviewer is sometimes late. This is the main reason why review time is so different from paper to paper. You can’t do much about it, and to a large extent the journal also can’t.

The stage you can shorten: preparation

The delays you can avoid mostly happen before review and just after it. If the paper doesn’t fit the journal, the editor gives a desk rejection. If a declaration is missing, the paper comes back on the technical check. If your first revision leaves one reviewer’s point unanswered, there will be a second review round. Careful preparation, and a full point-by-point reply to the reviewers, is where you actually gain time. Are you stuck at the revision stage? Our reviewer response support was made for that exact stage.

Why timelines vary so much

By field

In some fields the papers are shorter and there are more active reviewers. Much of chemistry, medicine and engineering works like this, and these fields usually move faster. In other fields the papers are long, specialist reviewers are fewer, and detailed revision is the normal practice. Economics, management and many social sciences and humanities come in this group, so they tend to be slower. Mathematics also goes slow, as the reviewer must check the proofs.

By journal type

• Large open access and “mega” journals mostly have quick editorial systems, and they publish soon after acceptance. The review itself still takes weeks to months.
• Society and subscription journals can have longer queues. Where there is a print issue, a backlog may build up between online publication and issue assignment.
• Highly selective journals reject most of the papers, many times quickly at the desk. A paper they do send for review can take longer and go through more rounds.
• Special issues run on their own separate deadlines, so many times they move faster. But some journals that indexing databases later re-evaluated also had a flood of special issues. So check such journals with care.

By paper

Inside one journal, one paper may be accepted in three months and another one in ten. The difference between papers in the same journal is bigger than the difference between journals. If your paper needs major revisions and then a second round, it will take much longer than a paper accepted with minor changes.

How to estimate a specific journal’s speed

No need for guessing. Most journals put the evidence out in public.

1. Read the dates on recent articles. On each article most journals print the “Received”, “Revised”, “Accepted” and “Published online” dates. Open ten recent papers and write down the gaps. For that particular journal, this is much more useful than any general figure.
2. Look at the journal’s homepage metrics. Many publishers give the median time to first decision and the time to acceptance on the journal’s own page.
3. Look closely at very short gaps. If recent articles go from received to accepted in one or two weeks again and again, full peer review probably did not happen.
4. Check the backlog. Sometimes the “published online” date and the issue date are months apart. In that case find out which date your university counts.

What “publication in 7 days” usually means

Many scholars are seeing adverts and agents who offer Scopus or UGC-listed publication in 7, 15 or 30 days. Looking at the stages above, such a promise can be kept in only a few ways.

• the journal is not doing genuine peer review
• the website is a copy of a real journal’s site, so the paper would not appear in the real journal
• the journal has been, or is about to be, discontinued from the database it claims
• it is a conference proceeding whose indexing is not yet confirmed.

Once in a while a legitimate journal does give a very fast decision on some paper. But a legitimate journal fixes acceptance and publication dates only through its own review process. Before you pay any money, go through the checks in our predatory journal guide.

Planning backwards from a thesis deadline

When you know your thesis submission date, go backwards from it using the points below.

• First ask your university what exactly it wants by the deadline. Is it submitted, accepted or published? And does the paper also have to be visible in Scopus or Web of Science?
• Count back at least 8–12 months from the date you need an acceptance. This is for a journal article in most science and engineering fields. In social sciences, humanities and business, keep more time.
• Add a rejection buffer. A desk rejection takes away a few weeks. A rejection after review can take away several months. So keep a ranked shortlist of two or three suitable journals ready with you.
• If the paper must be seen in a database, keep time for indexing also. Usually a paper comes in Scopus some weeks after it goes online.
• Write the paper side by side with the thesis chapter. Don’t wait for the chapter to finish. You are using one analysis for both anyway, and many times the reviewer’s comments make the thesis chapter itself better.

A worked example

Say your department needs one accepted journal paper before thesis submission, and you plan to submit in October next year. Start from October and go back. For some margin, you want the acceptance by about August. Keep around six months for the review and one revision round. That puts your submission in February. Before that you need about two months to draft and prepare the paper, so writing has to start in December. Suppose the first journal rejects it after review. Then also you have a few months to try the second journal from your shortlist. The plan is tight but it can work. If you start in May, there is no space left for even one rejection.

If your deadline is already close

Go to your department and discuss about whether an accepted paper, a paper under review or a published conference paper will satisfy the requirement. Ask if an extension is possible also. After that pick a journal that matches your paper well and whose review you have seen to be quick, checked the way our Scopus guide explains. At this stage a paid fast track is a risky option, because your university may not count a paper published like that.