editor assignment pending to review completed

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Editorial process after submission

This article shows the editorial process after Submitting a manuscript to a journal .

Stage 1: Initial quality check

This stage includes checks on authorship, competing interests, ethics approval and plagiarism. 

We oversee this process to ensure that your manuscript contains everything our editors and peer reviewers need to perform a fair and thorough assessment of your work.

Stage 2: Editor assigned

Once your manuscript passes the initial quality check, we assign it to a member of Editorial Board, who is an active researcher in your field.

If the editor is satisfied with your work, they will choose appropriate peer reviewers to evaluate your work, taking into account several factors including expertise, experience and apparent conflicts of interest.

Stage 3: Peer review

Reviewers will assess the technical soundness and scientific validity of your methods, analysis and interpretation, all of which must be appropriate, properly conducted, ethically robust and fully supported by the data. 

For additional information, please check our peer review policies for Springer , BMC  and Nature portfolio or visit the respective journal website. 

Stage 4: Decision

The editor will then decide whether to accept your work as is, request minor or major revisions, or reject the paper due to unresolvable concerns. In case of a rejection, an article transfer will be considered. 

For all subsequent steps, please check Next steps for publishing your article: What to expect after acceptance .

Related Articles

• Locate submission instructions for a Springer journal
• Submissions to Nature Journal
• Submit a manuscript with your ORCID number
• Submit a Nature Portfolio manuscript for Open Access publishing
• Submit multimedia files to be published online with your article
• Artwork submission instructions
• Rejection of your paper / manuscript

• Journal Article Publishing Support Center

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How can I make changes to a completed review in Editorial Manager?

If a reviewer has made an error or has further comments after submitting a review, it may be possible to reopen or edit the review before the decision is sent to the author.

Once an editor has saved a decision, the existing reviewer comments are copied into the editor's form, where the editor can make changes. After that, any changes to past Reviewer Comments will not be automatically updated within the editor decision form, or the author letter. Instead, updates must be made either within the Decision form, or in the Draft Decision Letter, in order for those changes to be seen by the author.

• Log in and go to your Reviewer Main Menu.
• Select ' Completed Assignments ' and locate the completed review you wish to change. See How do I find a submission I was invited to review in Editorial Manager?
• To view your comments as submitted, select View Reviewer Comments.
• If there is no Send E-mail link, contact us via the channels at the bottom of this page.
• Customize the email text to explain why you need to make changes to your completed review.
• Select ' Preview and Send ', and then ' Send E-mail '.

The journal should respond in one of these ways:

• If the editors have not started any decision, they may be able to Reopen the review. In that case you will receive a new Reviewer Invitation letter, and it will move back to your Pending Assignments folder.
• The journal may be able to manually edit your completed review to make the changes you request.
• If the decision has already been sent to the author, it may be too late to make any changes.

If a reviewer requests changes to a completed review before the decision is sent to author, and you agree the changes should be made:

• Other statuses such as Invited, agreed to review, and Partial Review Saved are displayed as unlinked text.
• (None) could mean the reviewer was not invited for that revision, was uninvited/declined, etc.
• Reviewers that have been declined/uninvited without ever agreeing for any revision are not displayed at all in this table.
• No Decision (in red) indicates the editor assignment is still active.
• If the editor assignment was ended by some other means, such as a Skip or Termination, that is not a hyperlink.
• Just above the corresponding author, any Author Decision Letter that has been sent is displayed as a hyperlink.
• If so, the author has been notified of the decision and so changes cannot be made to the review comments.
• In that case, the editor form will have an author-facing version or reviewer comments saved. You may still be able to edit the reviewer forms as described below, but that will not automatically reflected on the version that will be sent to the author.
• Once an editor decision has been saved, authors will only see changes to reviewer comments that are done as part of Editor Decision or Author Notification steps.
• If the reviewer agreed to review, and then was terminated by an editor, a link [Terminated by Editor] appears in place of the recommendation term, selecting this allows you "Edit review comments" as described below. In this case the review status will change from Terminated to Completed when you save the review as described below.
• When you select any Reviewer Recommendation term link to open the review, you may have either one or both of these options , depending on your permission and the submission status.
• Reopen review : sends a new invitation to the reviewer so they can resubmit a new review; this is available only before a decision has been made.
• Edit Reviewer Comments : opens the review form in edit mode, allowing you to edit almost any part of the reviewer's response. You will not be able to edit the reviewer's choices for Article Transfer options .

'Reopen Review' steps

• Read the warning, then select ' OK ' to confirm the action.
• The Re-open Review and Customize Letters screen will appear.
• Select an Invitation letter.
• For example, if the reviewer requested this be done you could say 'as you requested', or if the reviewer left out an important part of the review you can add those details to the new invitation.
• Let the reviewer know they can find the review under "Pending Assignments".
• Leave any merge codes (text between %% symbols) unchanged.
• Select ' Confirm Selection and Send Letter '.
• The status may change, depending on the number of required reviews . For example, if the status was previously required reviews complete, but reopening this review lowers the number of completed reviews past the requirement, the status will revert to Under Review.
• You may want to edit the Reviewer Due date. Select the "Details" link for the submission. If you do have permission to edit review due dates, you will be able to change the date next to the reviewer's name, and then select "Save and Close" at the bottom. See here for more detailed steps.

'Edit Reviewer Comments' steps

• Read the warning , then select "OK" to reload in edit mode.
• Changes are not reversible, once you save the form the previous version cannot be recovered.
• You will not be able to view or edit the reviewer's choices for Article Transfer options .
• Select ' Save and Close ' when done with changes.

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Related Articles:

• How do I make a decision in Editorial Manager?
• Video Guide: Making changes to your completed review in Editorial Manager
• How do I find a submission I was invited to review in Editorial Manager?
• Reviewer Guide to Editorial Manager
• How do I make changes after I have submitted an article?

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This subreddit is for discussing academic life, and for asking questions directed towards people involved in academia, (both science and humanities).

"Editor assignment pending" for 20 days after submission?

Hi there! I've submitted a paper to a known (Springer) journal of my field the 7th of this month. On the 12th (3 full working days!) the status on the editorial manager swithced from "article submitted" to "editor assignment pending". And it's still in this status today. Am I interpreting this correctly that in 20 days the paper hasn't even been sent to an editor?

If that's indeed the case... What should I do? My PI is starting to suggest to withdraw the paper and submit it somewhere else.

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