Manuscript Status Tables Part 2

To continue on with my explanation of the Manuscript Status Table in the GEMS system for each paper, here are a few more example tables. I won’t cover every line like I did in the first post, but rather just those either not covered in that post or ones that might be confusing.

Here is an example of a table for a resubmission of a revised manuscript:

ManuscriptProgressStages_revsubm

I like this table because it illustrates some key features that could be very confusing for authors. First of all, the third line up from the bottom, “Waiting for Reviewer Assignment,” really shouldn’t be there. It is just part of the way that resubmissions get routed through the GEMS system. You can see that it spends no time here before moving on to quality control. In addition, you can see that it was sent back to the author at the quality control phase. Something wasn’t quite right with the submission and the AGU staff asked for clarification from the authors.

Once the initial quality control was complete, then two more lines instantly appeared in the chart, “Waiting for Reviewer Assignment” and “With Editor for Decision.” Because it is a resubmission, it gets pushed into the editor’s “Waiting for Decision” inbox at GEMS. The editor then reads through the responses and the manuscript and decides whether to reject, accept, or send it back to one or both of the referees for an additional round of review.

Apparently, the editor decided to sent it back for review, and they did it very quickly because it only took half an hour to move on to “Contacting Potential Reviewers.” Four days later, however, a new line appeared, “Waiting for Reviewer Assignment.” This means that one of the two original reviewers declined to review this revised version of the manuscript, and so the editor had a choice: continue without this reviewer or find a replacement. It looks like the editor wanted another opinion about the paper, and the next morning new potential reviewers were selected and emails were sent off. The rest of the lines were already covered in the other post, like the strange double entry of “Decision Made.”

A second example table I’ll show you is one where the paper was eventually accepted:

ManuscriptProgressStages_acceptnorefs

Specifically, you can see that it did not go out for review but rather the editor decided on acceptance purely from reading the responses to the reviews. There are two new lines at the top of the table, as well. The first (chronologically, so the lower one), “Manuscript Ready for Publication,” means that a task has been forwarded to AGU staff to send the files on to Wiley for production. The other line, “Manuscript Accepted,” means that this task has been completed and the paper is now with Wiley staff. Sometimes this process is done in a few hours and other times it takes a few days. Very rarely, when a paper has a bad file in the system or there is some other issue to deal with, this last step can take a week or more.

If you have questions about status table entries that you’ve seen with your manuscripts, then please feel free to comment in the box below or send me an email about it. If I don’t know the answer then I can ping the AGU staff about it.

9 thoughts on “Manuscript Status Tables Part 2

  1. Thanks for taking the time to write this up! I was quite confused by all the “waiting for reviewer assignment” entries.

  2. my status shows that after the first “under review” entry, the second “contacting potential reviewers” and “under review” entries occurred simultaneously. More interestingly, 15 days later, there occurred the third “contacting potential reviewers” and “under review” entries.

    • I don’t know for sure without knowing the specific manuscript number and looking up the email trail, but my guess is this: each “contacting potential reviewers” entry means that emails were sent out to a potential reviewer, and each “under review” entry means that someone accepted a reviewing assignment. That you have 3 “under review” entries means one of two things — either a reviewer withdrew after accepting the assignment and a new reviewer was asked and accepted, or the editor decided that a third review was needed for this paper. If it never went to “with editor for decision” in there probably means the former, not the latter.

  3. When I originally left a comment I seem to have clicked on the -Notify mee when new comjents are added- checkbox
    and fom now on every time a comment is added I get 4
    emails with the exact same comment. There has to be a way you can remove me from
    that service? Thanks!

  4. Pingback: Editorial Workflow | Notes from the JGR-Space Physics Editor-in-Chief

  5. I submitted revised version. Then status are following
    With editor for decision (10 days)
    Waiting for reviewer assignment (29 days)
    Under review (5 minutes)
    With editor for decision (7 days, this is current status)
    I dont know how to interpret this

  6. Pingback: My Top Posts of All Time | Notes from the JGR-Space Physics Editor-in-Chief

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