August 29, 2017
mark.johnston
mark.johnston@ucdenver.edu
Hello Mark Johnston,
It has been about three months since I sent a paper entitled “Kinship Governs Fertility with Pre- and Post-zygotic Mechanisms Mediated by Match of Methylation Patterns” to Genetics. I was given to expect a reply in about a month, but the chilling thought just struck me that my trusty AOL mail service might have tucked a reply into my spam folder, which I almost never check.
Another journal has expressed interest in the paper, which they found on the preprint server. I am rather stuck, trying to be courteous to all: beg you for an answer or go where I’m wanted.
I don’t mean to be unsympathetic. I know everyone is an unpaid volunteer, working for the general weal. But I have another paper in the works that will cite this one, so I am dead in the water twice. I’m sure your referees are up against it, since this is essentially a paradigm shift … although that term I only hear used after the fact. They may simply be stalled out. I think you’re within your rights to call silence consent, but that would be pushing it.
I’d much appreciate a response however terse: “scram” or “on it” would be much appreciated. This time I promise to check my spam folder. Give it a couple of weeks, say it’s the 29th of August, making two weeks the 12th of September. If I hear nothing, I shall assume a distinct lack of enthusiasm and send a proper withdrawal.
Sincerely,
M. Linton Herbert
He got back to me and said I’d been turned down the next day. I wish I had known; there go three months shot for nothing.
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