r/PublishOrPerish

Hi everyone,
I’m currently navigating the waiting game with a manuscript submitted to Wildlife Research published by CSIRO (So Australian based journal) and could use some perspective from anyone who has seen a similar pattern in the portal. Mind you, its my first manuscript, so if i sound confused/green/novice please do excuse me.
I submitted my paper on May 26, and it went into “Under Review” after a few days. On August 3, the status changed to “Decision in Process,” although “Under Review” was still visible beneath it at the time. Then, yesterday (August 18 EU time), the status updated again—“Under Review” completely disappeared, and now the portal only shows “Decision in Process” and lists the name of the Editorial Assistant (EA).
Around the same time, I received a mass administrative email about APC discount codes for submissions made before August 13, though the email explicitly mentioned applying the code “after acceptance.”
It has now been nearly three weeks since “Decision in Process” first appeared, and the final removal of the “Under Review” status only happened yesterday. I’m trying to figure out if this specific sequence usually signals that the reviews are finalized and the editor is now just drafting the final letter. Also, is a three-week window for “Decision in Process” common, or does it typically suggest a more complex decision, like conflicting reviews leading to a Major Revision?
And finally, does the appearance of the EA’s name at this stage usually mean the manuscript has moved to the final administrative checkout?
I’d really appreciate any insights or similar experiences. Thanks!

Now, I think that two months is still completely fine (indeed, I hope for a competent revision instead of the 'fast ones'). But I would wondering when to start contacting the editorial board.

Recently I submitted 2 articles in 2 different journals published by Wiley and they both went from In screening to Under review! Does that mean these papers has actually passed the desk check or it's still on the table with the editor??

Hi everyone,

So I've submitted a group of my poems to a competition. I've gotten shortlisted for publishing but it's considerably expensive. It includes an ISBN number registration for my poems and a number of other things. But given the price, I want to know if my publishing the poems actually helps me in terms of college admissions? ​​​​ Any and all help would be appreciated.

PS. All my poems are about empowerment and academics. Just an FYI.

Anyone who has had the problem of registering a random controlled trial as a retrospective study ,To like WHO or CHiCTR registry, revise the manuscript for like a whoñe year , The paper has 10 reviewers , 9 of them says the paper is good then just one says no this journal communities only accepts prospective studies like i dont get it .am i the only one whom have experienced this?

So this is my first time publishing an article and presenting it ! As my college has just started few weeks ago i dohave much information regarding how to do all these ... i asked few of my seniors they are just saying like as i know everything 😂 .... but yeah as this is my first time i really want to write and publish an article so if anyone of u can help from basics

Hi everyone,

I’m a high school student who recently started getting more seriously involved in research, particularly in neuroscience and psychology. I’m currently working on a literature-based conceptual paper and I’m trying to better understand the academic publishing process.

For those who have already published their first paper:

How did you approach your first publication?

How did you choose a suitable journal?

What were the biggest challenges you faced during submission and peer review?

Were there any free resources or communities that helped you improve your manuscript before submitting?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who started publishing early or without extensive institutional research experience.

I’d really appreciate any practical advice or lessons from your first publication. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm finishing my Bachelor's in Environmental Science this September and starting a Master's in Research (MRes) in Environmental Science right after. I'm reaching out because I'd like to collaborate with researchers on publications, ideally as a way to build real co-authorship experience early on.

My main research interests are invasive species, entomology, and dendrochronology/dendroclimatology. I did an internship at a Forest Institute contributing to research on bark-eating beetles, led an independent (unpublished) study on the impact of an invasive gall wasp on chestnut leaf physiology, and my thesis is a dendroclimatological study of Mediterranean pines. I've presented posters at 3 conferences, including IUFRO Division 7 in Lisbon.

That said, I'm not narrowly limiting myself to that niche as I'm comfortable with R for statistical analysis and data wrangling more broadly (mixed models, community ecology stats, time series), so if you or someone you know has ecological data that needs analysis, cleaning, or modelling help and could use an extra set of hands, I'd genuinely welcome that conversation too.

I don't know if this is a slightly unusual ask on this sub, but I'd rather be upfront: if anyone here is working on something in this space and could use analytical help in exchange for co-authorship or just the experience, I'd love to hear from you. I'm equally happy to just hear general thoughts on how early-career people (pre-PhD) typically find their way into these collaborations.

(I've kept some details vague here for anonymity, but I'm happy to share a portfolio or examples of my data analysis work directly if that would help anyone evaluate whether it's a fit.)

Thanks for reading.

I recently had a strange experience with an Elsevier manuscript transfer process and would like to know if others have experienced something similar.

Our manuscript was initially rejected by one Elsevier journal, but the editor recommended transferring it to another journal with “guaranteed peer review.” We accepted the transfer.

The manuscript went through peer review, and we received reviewer comments. The editorial system then showed “Revision Requested – Major Revision.” However, the editor also told us that the manuscript would ultimately be rejected because it was “not within the scope of the journal,” regardless of our revision.

This is what I find difficult to understand: Why ask authors to undertake a major revision if the editor has already decided that the paper will be rejected regardless of what we do? It seems strange to ask reviewers and authors to invest additional time in a revision that supposedly cannot change the outcome.

The sequence then continued:

Rejection → “Guaranteed Peer Review” → Peer Review → “Major Revision” → Revision Requested → “Out of Scope” Rejection → Transfer to another journal → “Conditional Acceptance.”

At this point, I am questioning not only the editorial decision but the transparency and legitimacy of the transfer process itself. Is the purpose genuinely to find the best scientific journal for the manuscript, or is there also a commercial incentive to move manuscripts through a publisher’s journal portfolio?

I am not accusing anyone of misconduct or claiming that editors receive financial incentives—I have no evidence for that. I am simply asking whether this is normal editorial practice.

Has anyone else experienced a similar “Major Revision” request while being told the paper would be rejected regardless of the revision?

I’d be especially interested in hearing from authors, reviewers, or editors familiar with Elsevier’s Article Transfer Service.

Bit of a long rant incoming, I'm apologizing beforehand for the absolute wall of text I'm about to type out...

I know that this is an ongoing, albeit saturated topic, but where is academic writing even headed? Particularly in STEM fields. We live in a world now where if you decide to get into academia, there is a massive push for publications. Many institutions now hold stringent publication policies for everything from grades of students to promotions of faculties. Well at least this is how it works in Asia.

In the institute from where I graduated from a few years back, there's a policy that states that Master's students must have one publication in a peer reviewed journal if they want their dissertation work to be considered even eligible for the top grade. Given that the dissertation work holds a huge weightage in terms of credits, even a single grade point difference makes a massive difference in the final GPA.

I know how my supervisor pressurised me to write a review paper so that I could get the top grade. He gave me, a completely inexperienced Master's student, a ridiculous deadline of 15 days to write a full length high quality review paper, one that's good enough to be published in an SCI indexed journal, entirely by myself. I actually took several months to submit the first draft and he decided to submit it to a lower quartile journal so that it gets accepted quickly. My paper is obviously not great but I genuinely believe it could have been published in a higher impact journal if it had been given some time. The hunt for a grade now hurts the visibility of the paper.

The paper did get accepted for peer review in the first go and after multiple rounds of peer review (basically reviewer 4 bullying me 3 times in a row y'all know how that goes), it got accepted for publication a few months before my thesis defense and I got the highly coveted top grade... Only for me to not be satisfied at all.

This is how it's running in my institute now. My juniors have taken after me and one more batchmate of mine who also published a review paper and are now in a massive rat race endlessly typing away on their laptops.

During my literature review phase I read well over 200 papers. Many of the recently published review papers I read had a lot of glaring red flags. The most concerning being mismatched references. For example, a study claimed a nanoparticle could perform an activity of a particular enzyme but the paper they had cited was about photovoltaic cells. This wasn't even a singular issue. This same problem of incorrect references was all over the paper. This was published in a Q1 journal having an impact factor of 18 something. It was published a couple or so years back and it's still sitting there. This is a typical example of blatant misuse of LLMs (where it cooks up its own claims and cites totally unrelated papers) and somehow this wasn't caught during peer review either despite the journal being "high quality".

I honestly can't blame whoever wrote it because they very well could have been under pressure from their PI or in a rat race for publications and decided to just copy paste whatever some LLM told them for the hell of it.

I even see numerous papers where the figures are very obviously generated by some LLM tool. The text seems to AI generated or polished too (although there's no real way to prove it). The telltale signs are obvious. The journal policies clearly state to disclose AI usage and some don't even allow AI generated art. I haven't found a single paper where the authors openly disclose that they used an LLM tool for writing assistance or grammar polishing. I'm pretty sure the editors and reviewers know and notice this too. Do they just not care?

So is this really where we are now? Quality of papers coming out now are on a steady decline and no one really seems to care, and even if they do, the problem is so widespread and systemic that they can't even do anything. What does this mean for the future of publication quality and academia overall? Would love to know everyone's thoughts.

So I submitted an academic paper to this year's European Conference on Game Base Learning with the hopes of it being accepted and published to be in the conference.

At first everything went smoothly and my abstract was accepted, but when it was about time to get the results from the peer review to see if my paper was accepted, they are having issues with the reviewers and my results have been delayed. According to their official website, if accepted the final paper with the necessary corrections should have been submitted 2 days ago, which obviously I wasn't able to do because I still haven't received my results yet.

I already sent them a couple of emails and they just keep apologizing for the delay and promise they will have the results soon, and honestly at this point I'm already getting impatient. Has anyone experienced this with this conference in particular??? Is it like a regular thing for peer review to be delayed???

For further context, this is my first time doing a research and submitting an academic paper, I'm not a researcher I'm just an art student that was forced by their university to participate in the ECGBL and so far this whole thing has been an absolute nightmare.

Honestly I'm beginning to get upset since I don't seem to get my results any time soon and my university is already backing up with the economical support for paying the ECGBL fee.

I have pretty much perished already. 2 years since completing my PhD and haven't been able to make something publishable out of the research chapters.

How is afterlife for those who perished already?

i created a research poster at a summer program last summer and wasn't able to publish it earlier because of issues with contacting the group. i'm trying to publish it now, ideally before college apps are submitted, and was wondering if anyone knows of any like journal-type thing or conference where i can submit the poster to, preferably before oct/nov (early apps + uk) and definitely before january?

i know that not publishing wont be the end of me or anything, but i just put a lot of work into it and was hoping to submit it or present it somewhere, so if you know of any conferences or places to submit posters for high school students that would be great. thank you!!