peer-review taking over 1 year

[Cheerful]

Update.
I finally got my comments from reviewers. Major revise and resubmit. Okay with me but this is a lot of work, many,many hours with no guarantee. I enjoy this writing--its my escape from life but I'want to move on to a totally different project.
The editor's comments were not optimistic-- weak approval. Makes you wonder what percent of revisions in humanity fields are accepted or not. I saw this online once. --Perhaps many authors are revising their articles simultaneously for this journal. Some offers to revise may be empty promises? Only courtesy. Reviewers could ask for very challenging revisions that would be difficult to carry out , deliberately.

Thoughts?

Sounds common.  Not necessarily an "empty promise" with unsavory motives but simply a gesture to let you decide whether to invest more time and take a chance on re-submission with no guarantee of outcome.

You could painstakingly do all they say, re-submit, wait another 6-9 months, and the reviewers reject or come back with yet another set of revisions. I've seen good and awful outcomes for "revise and resubmit" -- as reviewer, editorial board member, person submitting work, and colleague of others in same boats.

Given what you say, I might revise lightly, submit to a different journal, and call it a day,  especially if you're keen to move on to something new and don't need the publication for the CV.

[Parasaurolophus]

The R&R acceptance rate in my field is high. And so far, I've been able to turn around all of my R&Rs, even the weak ones. I put a lot of work into them, however.

[Cheerful]

The R&R acceptance rate in my field is high.

Is there reliable data on this somewhere for your field?

Glad you've had good, ethical outcomes.  It's not always the case.  Not all reviewers and editors behave collegially or ethically.

[Parasaurolophus]

The R&R acceptance rate in my field is high.

Is there reliable data on this somewhere for your field?

Glad you've had good, ethical outcomes.  It's not always the case.  Not all reviewers and editors behave collegially or ethically.

It's available via individual journals and their yearly reports, so you'd have to collate the data. And there'd be gaps, of course. But I don't think I've ever seen a rate below 70%.

The field does have a crowd-sourced document indicating acceptance rates, R&R acceptance rates, time to review, etc. That document confirms my impressions, although it's necessarily less accurate than data straight from the journals themselves. (The rates indicated there have historically measured up to those published in journal reports, however.)

FWIW, however, the initial acceptance rate at most journals in my field is in the single digits--often the low single digits.

[Faith786]

Hi everyone,
This is a frequent topic, I know, but I much need to vent and seek some of your wise advice. 13 months ago, I submitted a paper to a journal that is among the top in my subfield in literature. After 10 months, I got a revise and resubmit with positive reviews and requests for very specific changes. It's now been more than 3 months since I submitted the revisions and 1 week since I asked for a status update.
   Is quietly waiting the best option here? (Some friends of mine are convinced that asking for status updates triggers rejections)
   Should I contact one of the editors directly for a status update?
   Am I being unreasonable in light of the ongoing pandemic and expected delays?

1. Quietly waiting might send a wrong message that it is OK to take 13 months to get a manuscript peer reviewed.  This is not normal in my field, and usually 3 months is all it takes for the entire process to finish in a high profile journal, and the maximum is 4 to 6 months.
2. I would contact the editors (I have done this in the past). Some editors are very kind, some are on power trips and end up reviewing your work and then rejecting it (desk rejection), I have seen some claiming a rejection of my work because I didn't cite X author (when in fact, I cited X author nearly 15 times, meaning they didn't even bother reading the manuscript... it was a high profile journal too). A few editors who I have come across are extremely gentle souls and they will look into the issue (bless their hearts). I value my time, so I will not re-submit to the journals whose editors/editorial assistants have given a hard time...editors get replaced, so once that happens, perhaps I will consider resubmitting in the future.
3. No you are not being unreasonable. Vent away. I completely empathize. 

As others have mentioned, there are journals out there who have a 1 month turnaround and they are decent ones.

[delsur]

Hi everyone,

This is a frequent topic, I know, but I much need to vent and seek some of your wise advice. 13 months ago, I submitted a paper to a journal that is among the top in my subfield in literature. After 10 months, I got a revise and resubmit with positive reviews and requests for very specific changes. It's now been more than 3 months since I submitted the revisions and 1 week since I asked for a status update. Communication is handled by an editorial assistant, who is not a graduate student doing this part time, and who has already ignored a couple of my queries regarding specific guidelines.

   Is quietly waiting the best option here? (Some friends of mine are convinced that asking for status updates triggers rejections)
   Should I contact one of the editors directly for a status update?
   Am I being unreasonable in light of the ongoing pandemic and expected delays?

Thank you in advance for your insights.

Update: This paper did get accepted a short while after my post but the long and inefficient process is not over. When it comes out, it will have been more than two years since I submitted it. Sadly, this is not uncommon in my field. My main issue was not so much the time of publication but having to revise it more than a year after submission. I think it took double or triple the effort than if I'd had things fresh in my mind.

For people who may be in a similar position, I took a middle-of-the-road approach. I did not write to the editors but did convey to the journal manager that the delays and unanswered emails were not going unnoticed.   

Thank you all for the advice and encouragement.

[Myword]

I feel that the more work I put into this, sometimes the harder it is to be satisfied. And many other things in life, as well..
You can be well known for work you spent no time on  and no recognition for ideas you slaved on. Many famous examples in all endeavors.

I got a cursory inept rejection in 3 weeks from one journal and a very thorough review after 11 months. Which would you prefer? (Two different articles, same field.)

[rota1234]

There is an academic journals wiki where these kinds of issues can be logged anonymously to warn possible submitters. I'm not sure how up-to-date it is though.

Since academic journals--especially in the humanities--can be so opaque, it would be nice to have an active and updated database of this kind of information.

I'm not advocating call-out culture for journals but just more open information about timelines and expectations.

[Ruralguy]

Half my school's humanities faculty seems to be editor for Journal of Whatever. I have my doubts.
A call out culture might not be uncalled for.

[Hibush]

I got a cursory inept rejection in 3 weeks from one journal and a very thorough review after 11 months. Which would you prefer? (Two different articles, same field.)

I prefer the first. No question. Then I can submit somewhere else without wasting a bunch of time. Returning to a manuscript when it has cooled off for a year is not productive.

[Myword]

Sometimes I have no contact at all with editors. Springer uses editorial assistants. Editors are reclusive, can't be bothered or dont care.

[Myword]

 Update:
            So I  received an answer to my heavily revised article, after waiting 17 months! One reviewer was satisfied and the other reviewer gave it a sharp NO, and raised even more criticisms than he did the first time. I am mad. I rewrote the whole paper and made all the changes asked of me except that it turned out pages longer, and he expected me to hugely shorten it. Obviously, I could not strengthen the arguments by shortening it. More commentary is more work, not less. This was a no win situation. He hated the style and content and picked on everything, even the spacing on the page. Besides, the other reviewer also wanted me to add to it. Footnotes could be used more often, but I do not fill them important stuff like authors do. ( footnotes should not be more interesting than the paper.) I wonder how many journals would publish this narrow subject.
     .
  Beware of nosy or nasty reviewers, guys. Why do write, at all?  I don't need to like you do.
    I am venting. I would never submit anything to them  again. Its not as if it is top in the field.

[research_prof]

I believe the journal comes from a publisher. You can raise your concerns with the publisher directly. This way you can put the editorial board a bit in trouble.

[jerseyjay]

Update:
            So I  received an answer to my heavily revised article, after waiting 17 months! One reviewer was satisfied and the other reviewer gave it a sharp NO, and raised even more criticisms than he did the first time. I am mad. I rewrote the whole paper and made all the changes asked of me except that it turned out pages longer, and he expected me to hugely shorten it. Obviously, I could not strengthen the arguments by shortening it. More commentary is more work, not less. This was a no win situation. He hated the style and content and picked on everything, even the spacing on the page. Besides, the other reviewer also wanted me to add to it. Footnotes could be used more often, but I do not fill them important stuff like authors do. ( footnotes should not be more interesting than the paper.) I wonder how many journals would publish this narrow subject.
     .
  Beware of nosy or nasty reviewers, guys. Why do write, at all?  I don't need to like you do.
    I am venting. I would never submit anything to them  again. Its not as if it is top in the field.

I am sorry to hear of this result. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon. I would advise you to take a day or two to calm down, reread the reports, and figure out if there is anything useful in them, and decide if you should change your m.s. Then think about whether the last version you sent in or the penultimate version was better, and spend some time getting a version you like into shape. After something like this, my next version is usually some hybrid between what I originally sent in, and what I sent in after R&R.

Then send it to another journal, perhaps one that is in the top of the field. The fact that you got one reviewer who liked it shows that it is not without merit and it is not unheard of that a rejected article will get published in an even better journal.

One observation. You write: " Obviously, I could not strengthen the arguments by shortening it." Actually, I think that most arguments could be strengthened by significant shortening. Sometimes a reviewer's comments do not require massive adding to the texting, but a shifting of focus, and perhaps even shortening. Of course I do not know if the reviewer's comments had merit or what field you are in, so take it for what it is worth.

I usually find reviewers' comments, even stupid comments, as useful, because they give a window what somebody reading the piece might take away from it. Sometimes stupid or confused comments point to areas that should be clarified--not necessarily along the direction suggested by the reviewer, but in a way that makes it clear what you are trying to say.

[Parasaurolophus]

17 months is unacceptably long, and I'm sorry it took so long.

I find it's true that accommodating referees almost always increases the wordcount, usually significantly. I always try to cut back once I'm done addressing everything, but the paper usually ends up a little longer anyway.

FWIW--and maybe you already knwo and do this!--you can respond to referee comments when you hand in your revisions. You don't have to accept all the recommendations; you can lay out your reasons for rejecting some of the suggested improvements