Am I simply being impatient? It's a computer science/biomedical journal. Don't want to seem pushy, yet it seems like it shouldn't take 3 weeks to see if a manuscript is within scope and decide whether to send it for review. It's been sitting at the "with editor" status with no status updates.
2 Answers
Probably too early. Don't assume that the paper isn't evaluated yet. Most likely it was judged in scope and they are simply looking for referees.
Wait a little bit more.
Depends on both the journal and field, but at least in some engineering journals this would be too soon. Editors can often be overworked. Also, it can be difficult to find willing reviewers - and that's a process that the editor can't speed up even if they want to.