Why single-submission policies need to die (and what to do in the meantime). During the COVID-19 pandemic, my colleagues and I submitted a paper to a premier journal in our field, examining the effects of the onset of the pandemic on individuals’ mental health, based on their personality traits. This was a time-sensitive piece because people began to adapt as the pandemic accelerated. The paper languished for several months without even being sent out for peer review. Multiple e-mails to the journal yielded no progress.
We had to withdraw the paper and submit it elsewhere, losing valuable time. This could have been avoided had we been allowed to submit the manuscript elsewhere simultaneously. Another time, we submitted a paper to a journal, and it was promptly reviewed by one reviewer. The editor, however, couldn’t find another and asked us to suggest any possible reviewers. We did,…
