I submitted a paper to Physical Review D, an APS journal, approximately a month ago. So far, the editor has forwarded my paper to six referees for review, all of whom have declined. I suspect this may be due to the summer break. My paper is a concise six pages long and I find it to be interesting. I am eager to learn about the next steps in this process. Is there a limit to the number of times the editor will send my paper to referees for review?
2 Answers
Editor here. There's a point where if everyone you ask declines to review the paper, you come to conclude that one of two possibilities must be the case: (i) the people you asked looked at the paper and thought it was a waste of their time, (ii) the people you asked had no idea of the topic and did not think they are qualified. More often than not, it's (ii). The conclusion you draw as an editor is that if you, too, don't know the area well enough to find the right people, then the paper is not within the scope of the journal: If you don't know the area, and the people you ask to review the paper don't know the area, then the area is not well represented by who (you think) the readership of the journal is. So you decline the paper as "out of scope".
For me, at six people declining, I would already give up on the paper unless the majority of these people wrote to me with good reasons for declining, and perhaps nominating others.
answered Jul 15 at 23:42
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1Comparing your answer with the other one, I guess there may be a difference between math and physics.– KimballCommented Jul 16 at 22:58
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1@Kimball Possibly. Though in reality, I suspect that after 6 refusals to review, editors in other disciplines also give up. I do not believe that people's willingness to review a paper in their field is noticeably different between fields -- in parts because I've never heard anyone make such a claim. Commented Jul 16 at 23:56
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1Could there be a difference in terms of how many decline due to not "having time to provide a timely report"?– AnyonCommented Jul 19 at 15:32
From my experience as editor, six reviewers declining to review is by no means a large number. The problem is exaggerated if the journals requires two reviews (I don't know about the practice at Phys Rev D). Usually, there is no upper limit, but if they cannot find reviewers even after a long time (6-12 months), the editor may decide to give up and decline the paper on the basis that they cannot find reviewers.
If you are worried about a delay to publication, you could post it on the arXiv now.
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4"If you are worried about a delay to publication, you could post it on the arXiv now (unless you're not sure it will pass peer review)." If you are not confident enough in a paper to go to on the arxiv, you should not send it for peer review. What you are suggesting here is a rather unethical waste of reviewer/editor time.– TimRiasCommented Jul 15 at 11:55
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1(Note that if the paper is not on arxiv, this can be one reason for potential reviewers declining the review.)– TimRiasCommented Jul 15 at 11:57
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3@TimRias You can see the full paper in APS' referee portal before accepting to review, so declining just because it isn't on arXiv (yet) would be a bit weird and overreaching, IMO.– AnyonCommented Jul 15 at 13:21
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7No reasonable person will decline to review a paper just because it is not posted as a preprint on arXiv. There is no formal or informal requirement that people post their papers there. Why would a reviewer feel like such a requirement should be enforced? Commented Jul 15 at 23:39
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2@TimRias I posted a separate question about these reasons academia.stackexchange.com/q/212321/17254 Hope to see your perspective fleshed out more in the form of answers there.– AnyonCommented Jul 17 at 14:22