Hi, I am brand new to this site. I initially registered as I am in the process of trying to formulate a PhD project and am struggling to get ideas off the ground. Reading some of your thoughts/concerns on here have assured me that I am not the only person who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders at times.

I wanted to ask a separate question concerning the paper peer review process (for those who have experience of this). I submitted a paper early June, and from reading around the politics of publishing, I believe the peer review can take many months. I guess my intention here, is to see if anyone else can confirm this, or even better, share your experience(s). I received an email notifying me that I would hear in due course. What's the shortest or longest period of time you have had to wait for initial feedback? I know it is context specific to the particular journal/publisher etc. I just wanted to get a vague general picture of particular cases. I would appreciate any thoughts/feedback

Hey Turnerm, in the journals I have published in the standard response is supposed to be within 3 months, and it usually hasn't been too far off that, although I have heard of journals in other disciplines being horrendous! Then of course you have a certain amount of time to make changes and then you have to wait again to see if the changes are acceptable, so that drags it out a bit longer. Some journals do have a reputation for being particularly quick or slow, but really it depends on how long the individual reviewers take to review your paper, so even within a journal it could vary a lot. Good luck with your paper! KB