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political scientist • how people engage with info, and why this matters for attitudes and policy around the world • Deputy Editor @migrationjrnl.bsky.social • UK Young Academy • all the baking • www.wlallen.com

Will Allen

Reading @dmckenzie.bsky.social's always-helpful and just-published annual round-up, seems my experience in political science broadly lines up with (or is even slightly shorter than) development journals. But >5k submissions to WD in 2025?! Full blog here: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

And just to be clear: I’m not saying that time to decision is the metric we ought to be using to indicate quality. I’m simply sharing my data to help provide a window onto what the reviewing process is actually like. See this exchange for further thoughts: bsky.app/profile/dand...

When it comes to my own reviewing, I usually take ~6 weeks to submit my review regardless of what I eventually recommend. (The high outliers here were COVID related). I've gotten slightly faster at rejects: last year's median was 41 days.

I also track the number of reviews I give against the ones I receive, accounting for co-authors. Some say if we're creating needs for X reviews by sending work out, we ought to review the same. Obviously capacity varies. Seems I'm still net positive nearly two years into an assistant professor role.

For my area of political science #polisky, desk rejects are mercifully quick: about 8 days. Rejections after review have come after ~71 days, while R&Rs take ~85 days. Three months for a post-review decision seems reasonable. Overall, 4-out-of-5 of my submissions have been rejected. That's life!

11h

I track my peer-reviews: what I give and get. Every summer pre-job market, I share this to normalize how rejection in our industry is the norm, and to highlight the length of time it can take. This matters for advising and mentoring. It also helps me check I'm net positive on reviews! #academicsky