I'm on the editorial board of a journal in my field. I am often assigned manuscripts as managing editor. This means finding reviewers. Of late I've noticed a disturbing trend (ANECDOTE ALERT!!!). People I ask are taking an unreasonably long time to decide whether or not they will review a manuscript. Days. A week even. If this were just one or two people you could explain it away easily enough. They're traveling, for example. But it's not one or two. It's approaching 30-40%. Given that I'm managing two to four manuscripts at any given moment, that's a lot. And when they eventually get back to me (those that do...), they invariably say no they can't review the manuscript.
Why are you taking so long? Read the abstract (which we send in the email), think about what else you have to get done in the next couple of weeks, and decide whether or not this is a review you want to do. Then get back to me by reply email. Not a hard process. The longer you take to decline the invitation, the longer the whole process takes. Is that what you want to happen with your manuscripts? Didn't think so. So if you're going to decline, get off your rear end and say no quickly.
10 comments:
Hold on, I'll get back to you shortly...
And, whoa on the blog format change. A little warnign next time! I like it though.
I think it's the effect
"It's sort of in my field, let me think, I might have time..."
And then other stuff piles on and you forget.
Daily automatic reminders?
It might just be overload. After all, you are asking people to do unpaid work for you and hoping that they do a high quality job.
How have either of the two factors above changed recently to cause a recent and noticeable shift? Hasn't this been true for decades?
Exactly PlS. As I noted in my post, this is a recent trend. Besides, neither overload nor proximity to the potential field are good excuses for taking so long to say no.
A few gratuitous hypotheses (hard to test as you gave minimal data, so take them for what they're worth):
Aren't requests to confirm/deny whether you'd review at all relatively recent? I know in many journals in my field these (confirm/deny before we send you the full manuscript) have taken off in only the last couple of years. When did your journal first start sending these requests? Because people will get tired of them too after a period of novelty, and will start ignoring/postponing them just like they do direct requests to review (with no yes/no preceding).
Another option is that perhaps it correlates with some major proposal deadlines or major area conferences.
If when you say 'of late' you mean April and onward, it's just the end of semester issue and will continue into the summer; should go back come fall.
Lastly, I know I was much more inclined to jump on a review when it's one of my first few reviews for a given journal. Then I progressively became significantly less enthusiastic.
How's your reviewer pool? Presumably not all senior, established reviewers? I would look for correlation between seniority as reviewer journal as well as overall seniority vs delay. If you introduced a whole bunch of young reviewers last fall, they will have started to blow you off around late spring.
Or this is all a big mystery...
GMP:
Some background. I have been on the editorial board of this journal for 12 years. During my tenure on the board it has always asked potential reviewers if they are willing to review before sending the manuscript (that's not such a recent development in my field). I am quite aware of the difficulties of finding reviewers during the summer, and for that matter, around winter break, grant deadlines etc. I use a broad pool of reviewers - ranging from senior to junior - and am constantly looking for new people.
The "recent" I referred to was over the past year or so, so it encompasses pretty much all the likely distractors like grant deadlines, summer travels etc. It's anecdotal for sure, but I've seen a growing trend of people taking far too long to decline. I haven't looked for a correlation between career stage and time to decline. On the other hand, one hasn't leapt out at me.
Whoa ... I go away for a few days and you change up the blog!
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I've just been appointed associate editor to Middling Journal and am noticing the same thing with regards to the complete lack of response from reviewers. How difficult is it to scan the title, and perhaps even the abstract, decide if you will or won't review it and click the appropriate link? That's all it takes. Grrrr.
PiT:
Congrats on the associate editorship! Very cool. Welcome to the fun and games of finding decent reviewers...
Thanks! My appointment is a perfect example of academic nepotism at its finest.
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