deadlines during pandemic?

[rabbitandfox23]

Hi all,

How have your colleagues and institutions dealt with deadlines this year?

I feel like I'm drowning in tasks -- papers, dictionary entries, and reviews that I normally would have been able to finish on time. But given the closure of libraries where I am, hybrid teaching, and other stress factors including childcare, I'm falling way behind.  It seems like editors of volumes I'm contributing to have been *somewhat* more flexible but not as much as I would have thought. In correspondence, many of these editors don't seem very sympathetic.

How have expectations for your deadlines been this year? Just a couple of months leeway? Or have you been given pretty generous extensions?

I'm just wondering whether I'm just dealing with a particularly tough set of editors...

[fizzycist]

Put yourself in the editors' shoes. You know it's wrong and you are supposed to show infinite compassion, but at some point you just got sick of all the covid delays and excuses. Now you just want to get this volume off your plate because... well...you are way past your deadline too.

Disclaimer: I'm not an editor and, while I have been late on basically every soft deadline my entire career, it got much worse during covid-- you are not alone!

[Hegemony]

I'm editing a volume, and about half my contributors have asked for extensions. Meanwhile, the press itself is behind because of COVID-related production problems, so I have happily given my contributors extensions.

Meanwhile, I myself have an upcoming deadline, and have found it impossible to get the necessary books and visit the necessary archive. So I hope my editor is as understanding as I have been.

[sinenomine]

I just got an email from the editors of a journal for which I'm writing an article making it very clear that there will be no extensions. Happily, I have everything I need on hand, unless I get blindsided by something in the peer reviews. I'm also working on a chapter for an edited volume where the editors have been pretty much incommunicado lately, so I'm not sure if their deadline will hold.

I have a network of friends in my research area and we've been reaching out to each other when we can't put our hands on resources, since in most cases, someone has what's needed and can help out by looking up something or sending along a pdf, so that's helped with the closed libraries situation in many cases.

[Morden]

"Just a couple of months leeway?"

As a journal editor, I don't care a lot because if the work doesn't come out in this issue, it could probably come out the next. But as a book editor, I couldn't justify holding up a whole collection unless you're a super star--and even then, I know that I am potentially messing up the tenure and promotion cases of everyone who submitted on time. A couple of months is really generous.