How can we help you? (July 2017)

I'm leaving for a two-week vacation tomorrow, and probably won't be posting much until I return on August 12th. Because the job-market should be rapidly ramping up soon (some permanent jobs are already being posted on philjobs), I thought it might be good to run a "how can we help you?" in my absence.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comment section below on anything you need help with (questions about the job-market, profession, publishing, teaching, etc.). After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query. 

Please do fire away. We're here to help!

Comments

[Mark Z]

Enjoy your vacation Marcus!

[Marcus Arvan]

Thanks, Mark! :)

[Anonymous PostDoc]

Dear Marcus (and the rest of the Phil Cocoon Team)

I have a question/query about a journal submission that is taking a long time.... (let me explain)

In June 2016 i submitted a paper to a journal that i will not name (it's in the lower half of the Leiter top 20 generalists). After waiting for nearly 6 months i contacted the journal to ask about my submission. I was told at the time that they had struggled to find reviewers but were currently in the search for one.

Another month or two passed and i contacted again to ask if there had been any progress. I was then told that an 'expert reviewer' had been found - and while it would take another 6 weeks for a report/decision to come in, would i be ok with this. Obviously I agreed.

Another 2 months came and went and after inquiring again, i was told that a 'report was in', and to expect a decision soon/shortly. Unfortunately the journals idea of soon/shortly bears little resemblance to its common usage, and again around 6 weeks passed by.

At this point the paper has been 'under review' at the Journal for over a year. Given this I thought a gentle prod was in order. I contacted the associate editor (whom i had been in contact with), and was told that the editor was 'struggling to come to a decision on the basis of the report', and that inquiries would be made (by the associate editor) into what the status was. Alas that was nearly a month ago..

So that's the story, and my question is as follows. What is the best course of action from here on in? I feel like i have already 'pestered' the associate editor, and reading between the lines it does not seem as if they are really able to get any detailed info on what the editor is thinking about this piece, but are rather stalling. This is a good journal, and i would be very happy to have the piece accepted their (or even given an R&R verdict). However, given that its been nearly 14 months i'm starting to wonder whether it just isnt going to happen. I'm reticent to fire off yet more emails since they seem to have little to no effect. I am also slightly worried that if the editor is in some kind of mental deadlock on the paper that more pestering is likely to push in the direction of a rejection.

As a final caveat, i wonder what people make of this 'struggling to make a decision', 'given the report'. Has anyone ever come across something similar before? I assume, given high rejection rates, that a simple bad report, or even an ambiguous one, often just leads to a straight rejection. From my experience, editors don't agonize over whether to reject or not, so is there any 'positive' interpretation of this remark that doesn't imply rejection is still the most likely option?

Any thoughts on this would be great!

Thank you again