Is it polite to send a follow-up email to the editor after 15 days, if the previous email had no reply?

Question

I submitted a research paper in pure mathematics in a good (in the sense of science citation indexing) journal published by a university in the USA. It has been over 3 years since I submitted it.

In the mean-time, the third round of revision (a minor revision) was submitted two and a half months back. The first round of review took almost 2 years, then a minor revision for the second round of review took almost a year. The final and third revision was submitted two and half months back. The review reports were positive every time. The last time (two and half months back), the editor said that the referees will inform soon. After two months, I gave another polite reminder (15 days ago) about the status of the paper, but I received no reply from the editor. I understand, an editor might have been busy and might have been missed or forgot to reply.

If I give another follow-up email to the editor, would it be polite or the editor mind it? If I write a follow-up email, what should be the email's message?

Some more information: I am a graduate student, and will be defending my thesis soon. So, a few publications will help me for the next step of my career. The paper is almost 30 pages paper of fundamental mathematics, that is, mostly theorems, lemmas etc, not many figures. However, in my opinion, the mathematics involved in the paper are not very difficult to review by an expert.

Answer 1

I wouldn't worry so much about politeness, since you have a need. But this journal seems a bit (ha ha, more than a bit) lethargic. I doubt that you can expect anything to happen soon.

In a note to the editor, ask for the prospects of publication within, say 6 (or whatever) months. Maybe you will get an answer. I hope so. Mention that you are graduating soon and a published article will help in the job market.

Withdrawal is an option, but it probably won't speed you up by much if anything by submitting elsewhere. Yes, math publication can be slow, but this is a bit much. Ask. Keep the wording polite, but don't worry about the politeness of the request itself.

Normally asking for follow up in two weeks is a bit soon, but I think this is an exception.

Answer 2

While I understand that math publishing moves much more slowly than most other fields, the pace here seems so lackadaisical that I don't think you have much to lose by being a little pushy--and things do happen. A journal lost a short paper of mine for a year[1]: the editor and assistants kept getting reassigned and this particular paper fell through the cracks. Like you, I held off on sending reminders in the interests of politeness, but I wish I had started sooner.

However, I would caution you that the timing of your emails is a little unfortunate. Two weeks ago, many western universities were starting to wrap up the academic term, setting final exams, papers, etc. That's finishing up and we're now heading into the holidays. If your paper is being handled by an academic, rather than a full-time professional editor, it might be on the back-burner while they deal with seasonal things and/or vacation.

Thus, if you don't send something in the next day or so, I would suggest waiting until January 6.

[1] In biology, this is essentially an eternity.