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Let assume that a manuscript needs to be revised after referee's report. If there is no reply from the author of manuscript, what happens? What are the rules and next steps in such cases?

user40491
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3 Answers3

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It depends on the journal. The journals I've been associated with have an online system that gives authors a certain deadline by which they have to submit a revised manuscript -- I suspect that the deadline is often set at 6 months. Authors are reminded of this deadline by an automated email a certain time before the deadline expires. Authors can ask for an extension, and it is routinely granted.

If an author does neither, then the manuscript is moved into an "archived" state where the database still has it, but it is not considered a "live" or "active" manuscript. Unless someone takes action, that is the final resting place of these manuscripts.

Wolfgang Bangerth
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The publisher can take no steps toward publishing if they don't have the consent of the author(s). The paper would just sit in limbo until contact is made.

I assume the editor will try to make repeated attempts to contact the author, but it may not happen immediately.

I assume, here, that the author has not yet passed copyrights to the publisher, so they have no rights in the paper at all.

But an author would also be mistaken to interpret no response as the same as a withdrawn. The editor should be informed if the paper is withdrawn.

Buffy
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    I don't expect most editors would make repeated attempts to contact. They're just going to let it sit, and probably eventually it would be considered withdrawn. – Bryan Krause Feb 08 '20 at 18:18
  • @BryanKrause, depending on the paper, of course. They don't have any recourse if it suddenly appears elsewhere, other than to be upset with the author. I also suspect that editors have a pretty big pile of such papers. In some places, editors will have clerical help to follow up, also. Unlike mere professors. – Buffy Feb 08 '20 at 18:20
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    I would expect that most editors have too much other stuff to do to remember months-old manuscript that have not been revised, unless some online system tells them. – Wolfgang Bangerth Feb 09 '20 at 19:36
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If there's no response from the author(s), the manuscript becomes dormant. The status stays as "revise" indefinitely, until one day the journal decides to perform spring cleaning and remove all these dormant manuscripts from the system.

An actively-curated journal might have automated systems where, if the revision is not received in the designated time (many revise decisions say they're expecting the revision at __ date) then they send a reminder, followed by updating the status as withdrawn.

Either way a paper whose authors aren't responding won't be published.

Allure
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  • The "withdrawn" status is not the default, though. I know several examples of papers where the revisions were received more than one decade after the referee reports were sent to the authors (sometimes, after significantly more than one decade) and were subsequently published (some of these examples are quite recent, too). – Andrés E. Caicedo Feb 10 '20 at 23:04
  • @AndrésE.Caicedo right, it depends on whether the journal is doing spring cleaning. If nobody does it, then the paper just stays dormant forever. – Allure Feb 10 '20 at 23:24