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I have submitted two papers in a top-tier applied mathematics journal. The first one is a short paper and the second one is a full paper. After 7 months the short paper and after 8 month the full paper got major revision. For the short paper I submitted the revised paper after 5 months. Finally, this paper got rejected after 7 months after I submitted the revision. Therefore it was under review for (7+5+7) months i.e. around 1.5 yr including the time I took for revising the paper. For the second paper I submitted the revised paper after 5 months. After this 5 months have passed. Therefore it is under review for (8+5+5) months i.e. 1.5 year. Will it be ok if I politely ask the editor about the acceptance chance of the full paper. One week back I asked the editor, he told me that they are waiting for one review. After that they will send the decision. Is it ok to request the editor whether he can confirm its acceptance chance ? If they want to reject reject now only, so that I can send to other journals. I will be applying for some jobs now. I need to know this information urgently. I am concerned because from the first round reviews I am very much hopeful about its acceptance. If I pressurize them they may reject it.

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    I don't think the editor could confirm the acceptance chance without communicating with the referee. Perhaps you could ask the editor to expedite the process by asking the referee to cut short his report and submit it immediately if it's going to be negative.
    – innisfree
    May 23, 2020 at 10:10
  • I am very surprised you had not asked earlier, or retracted the paper already. The journal is not doing its job properly, the referee should have reviewed the paper much earlier and if not the editor should have appointed someone else. Top journal or not, this is unacceptable.
    – user117109
    May 23, 2020 at 12:07
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    @Titus, It can be hard to get good referees in some areas of math. Especially for esoteric topics with only a few active researchers. And many things can explain a delay, including the nature of the paper itself.
    – Buffy
    May 23, 2020 at 12:37
  • @innisfree: Please see the edit. The total time also contains 5 months I took for revising the paper. also it is not 2 year, 1.5 year "including" the time I took for revising the paper
    – Alex Alex
    May 23, 2020 at 15:29

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I don't think the editor could confirm the acceptance chance without communicating with the referee. Perhaps you could ask the editor to expedite the process by asking the referee to cut short the report and submit it immediately if it's going to be negative.

You might not wish to do this if you want a more thorough report in the case of rejection.

You could alternatively ask the editor to send a reminder to the referee, whether the referee agreed to return a report before a particular date, and confirm that they had not lost contact with the referee (since a long time had passed).

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  • Please see the edit. The total time also contains 5 months I took for revising the paper. also it is not 2 year, 1.5 year "including" the time I took for revising the paper
    – Alex Alex
    May 23, 2020 at 15:29
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You could ask for the "acceptance chance", but what do you expect them to say? The editors don't know either - without the reviewer reports they can't give you an estimate, or if they do it's likely to be wildly inaccurate.

You're probably better off requesting they hurry up [because you are applying for jobs and you need the results urgently, etc].

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  • I am concerned because from the first round reviews I am very much hopeful about its acceptance. If I pressurize them they may reject it.
    – Alex Alex
    May 24, 2020 at 7:09
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If you did not let the editor know about your “special circumstances” in the earlier email, then I think it is okay to email again to inform them and ask if the process can be expedited at all. This is not uncommon when someone is coming up on a tenure decision, for instance. Editors can push a bit harder to get information back from referees when the situation calls for it.

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  • I am concerned because from the first round reviews I am very much hopeful about its acceptance. If I pressurize them they may reject it.
    – Alex Alex
    May 24, 2020 at 7:09
  • The editors I know are not petty like this, especially when people have a good reason to follow-up. That said, I don’t know the editors at this particular journal.
    – Dawn
    May 24, 2020 at 21:09

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