Is it wise to contact the editor of a journals with my concerns regarding the length of the acceptance process?

Question

I have finished writing my first paper to be published in a journal. My intent is to try to publish in a high-impact journal (there are two candidates from the IEEE Transactions class). However, my advisor and another professor, who is close to our research, both suggest that I should refrain from trying to aim that high, i.e. first publish in a lower ranked journal. They state that the reason is not the insufficient quality of the paper, but rather the length of the acceptance process, which is in their experience particularly for first-time authors very prolonged. The argument is, that I would lose many months, perhaps even more than a year in the back and forward process of rejections and resubmitions, when all this could be cut significantly, if a l. All that seems a bit pessimistic to me, of course, I don't want to wait so long, but I was under the impression that such a process would take at most 3-4 months.

Are those considerations regarding first-time authors deemed accurate? Would it be appropriate/advisable to contact the editors of the journals with my concerns regarding the length of the acceptance process?

PS: the field is computer science

Answer 1

I was under the impression that such a process would take at most 3-4 months.

No. 3-4 months would be, in my experience, extremely quickly for Computer Science transactions. That would mean that your submission would get accepted without modifications in the first revision, which almost never happens (and even then 3 months would be very fast). 1 to 2 years for the entire process is more common.

However, this has nothing to do with it being your first paper. It is the same for every submission. Those journals have pretty rigours peer review, which simply takes some time.

That being said, it will also be similar for other non-spam journals. I am not aware of any reputable CS journal that would suit your 3-4 months expectation.

Would it be appropriate/advisable to contact the editors of the journals with my concerns regarding the length of the acceptance process?

The answer would very likely be "deal with it or submit somewhere else". Frankly, if a journal had a reasonable way to cut down on the time required for the review process without hampering review quality, they would arguably do it anyway. They are not going to "make an exception" or anything of this ilk.

my advisor and another professor, who is close to our research, both suggest that I should refrain from trying to aim that high, i.e. first publish in a lower ranked journal. They state that the reason is not the insufficient quality of the paper, but rather the length of the acceptance process

I would assume they meant not "a lower ranked journal", but rather "a conference". Review durations for conferences are indeed much more predictable (and, generally, shorter, in the 2-month range on average).

Submitting to a weaker journal to get your notification a little bit faster does not seem like overly good advice to me. If they indeed were speaking about a lower-ranked journal, you should consider the possibility that they were sugar-coating their judgement that your paper is not good enough for a very strong journal.

Answer 2

I think it is perfectly appropriate to contact the editors with whatever question you have regarding the submission process. But first check the information in the web site. If there is not explicit information about the time it takes to review the manuscripts in the journals' instructions for authors (or elsewhere) then you can of course contact the editors. Personally I have contacted the editors previous to submission in several occasions to inquire about different aspects of the submission process or the journal's policy or even status (e.g. IF, indexing in PubMed, etc.).