How Long Does It Take to Publish in an Engineering Journal?

From submission to publication in an engineering journal usually takes a few weeks to a few months. The editorial check takes days, peer review by two reviewers takes weeks, your revision is due within one week, and production adds a little more. The one stage you control — your own revision — is also the one that most often runs longest.

Authors want a number from every engineering journal they consider. The honest answer is that no journal can give one before it has seen your manuscript, and a journal that does is telling you something about its process rather than about its speed.

The stages, and who controls each

Stage	Who controls it	Typical	Can it be sped up?
Acknowledgement	Automatic	Immediate	—
Editorial check	The editor	Days	No
Finding reviewers	The editor	Days to weeks	No
Peer review	Two unpaid volunteers	Weeks	No
Your revision	You	One week allowed	Yes
Second review	The same reviewers	Days to weeks	No
Proofreading	You	Days	Yes
Publication	The publisher	Days	No

Look at that table again and notice how few rows you can affect. Two — your revision and your proof check. Everything else depends on people whose time you do not control.

Why review takes as long as it does

Reviewers are working researchers who review unpaid, alongside their own teaching, research and deadlines. For your paper an editor has to find two of them who are in the right sub-field, free, and willing.

That is where most of the elapsed time goes, and it is not inefficiency. A reviewer who reads your paper properly needs a clear evening. Finding two such evenings in two different people’s calendars is genuinely the slow part.

The delay authors cause themselves

Here is the uncomfortable part. The revision window at this engineering journal is one week. In practice, revisions routinely take a month or more, because the comments arrive, the author reads them, feels discouraged, and sets them aside.

If you do one thing with this article, do this: read the reviewer comments the day they arrive, even if you cannot start work for another two days. The reading takes an hour and tells you the size of the job. Most reports turn out to be smaller than they felt on first sight, and our guide on responding to reviewer comments shows the format that clears the second round quickly.

What a promised turnaround actually means

Some engineering journals advertise publication within a fixed number of days. Work through what that requires: an editor must read the paper, identify two qualified reviewers, secure their agreement, give them time to read carefully, collect both reports, send them to you, receive your revision, have it checked again, and produce the article.

Guaranteeing all of that in seven days, before the manuscript has even been seen, is a promise about the process rather than about the speed. Something in that list is not happening.

Speed on its own is not a warning sign. A paper can clear review in three weeks because both reviewers happened to be free. The signal is a fixed period promised in advance, which nobody can control.

How to make your own paper faster

Get the scope right first. A desk rejection costs weeks and returns nothing. Fifteen minutes of checking prevents it.
Submit complete files. Cover letter, authorship form, manuscript. Missing one means the file sits.
Format to the specification before submitting. 15 pages, 300-word abstract, Vancouver references, 300 dpi figures — all on the Instructions to Author page.
Answer every reviewer comment in a numbered response. Vague responses generate a second round that a clear one would have avoided.
Return the revision inside the window. This is the single biggest lever you have.
Read the proof carefully but promptly. No changes are made after publication.

When to ask, and how

A polite enquiry after a reasonable interval is normal. Quote the reference number from your acknowledgement, keep it to a paragraph, and ask about status rather than for a decision. Weekly emails do not move a paper forward and they do consume the editor’s time.

If something has genuinely stalled — months with no acknowledgement, no response to two enquiries — that is worth raising with the Managing Editor, whose contact details are on the instructions page.

What "published" actually means, and when it happens

There is a step authors often miss when they estimate timelines. Acceptance is not publication, and publication has more than one moment:

Milestone	What exists at that point	Can you cite it?
Accepted	A decision, no article	No
Proof approved	A final version, not yet posted	No
Published online	A live article with a DOI	Yes
Published in print	The printed issue	Yes
Appearing in databases	Indexed records	Yes — but this lags

The gap that surprises people is the last one. Your article is live and citable the day it appears online with its DOI. Its appearance in indexing databases can lag by weeks, because those systems harvest on their own schedules. If a form asks for a database record and you cannot find one yet, the article is still published — give the DOI.

Planning around a deadline

If you have a fixed date — a thesis submission, a promotion round, a funding report — work backwards and be pessimistic:

Three months out: too tight for comfort but possible if the paper is finished, the journal is well chosen and you clear revisions immediately.
Six months out: realistic for a single round of major revision.
Under six weeks: do not plan on it. If somebody needs proof of work by then, an accepted-manuscript letter from the journal is the usual answer.

The mistake to avoid is choosing a journal for its promised speed rather than its fit. A fast rejection from the wrong venue is slower than a normal decision from the right one, because you start again from zero.

Where each delay actually comes from

Delay	Root cause	Preventable?
Weeks with no acknowledgement	Incomplete submission — the file never entered the queue	Yes
Desk rejection after three weeks	Scope mismatch	Yes
Long silence during review	Reviewer could not be secured, or dropped out	No
A second full review round	A vague or incomplete response to comments	Yes
Production delay	Figures below 300 dpi that must be re-supplied	Yes

Four of those five are within your control, and all four are decided before you press submit.

A realistic timeline, written out

Here is how a straightforward paper actually moves through an engineering journal, with no disasters and no unusual luck. Treat it as a shape rather than a schedule:

Day 0 — submission, acknowledgement with a reference number
Days 1–7 — editorial check against scope and minimum quality
Weeks 1–3 — reviewers identified and invited
Weeks 3–8 — the two reports come back
Week 9 — comments reach you; the revision is due within one week
Weeks 10–12 — second review and decision
Weeks 12–14 — proofs, charge, publication online with a DOI

Three to four months, with one round of revision, nothing going wrong. A paper that needs two rounds or loses a reviewer runs longer, and one that clears with minor revisions can be considerably shorter.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to publish in an engineering journal?

A few weeks to a few months. An editorial check takes days, two reviewers take weeks, you get one week to revise, and production adds a little more. No honest journal can promise a fixed number before it has seen your manuscript.

Why do some journals promise publication in 7 days?

Because they are not reviewing the paper. Two independent experts cannot be found, briefed, and given time to read within a week as a guaranteed service. A fixed short turnaround advertised in advance is a claim about the process, not about efficiency.

What is the longest stage?

Peer review is usually the longest stage the journal controls. But in real papers the longest single delay is often the author's own revision — the window here is one week, and papers routinely sit for a month.

Can I ask for a status update?

Yes, after a reasonable interval, quoting the reference number from your acknowledgement. Asking weekly does not speed anything up and does use the editor's time.

Does paying the charge speed things up?

No. The charge falls after acceptance, so it cannot affect the review timeline at all. Any journal where paying earlier moves you forward is selling something other than review.

How long do I have to return my revision?

One week at this journal. Read the comments the day they arrive even if you begin work later — the reading takes an hour and it tells you the size of the job.

Related Guides

The stages that decide the timeline:

Created by Arjun Bhatt • 08 Aug 2026