A realistic timeline for a first Scopus Q1 or Q2 paper runs from about nine to eighteen months, measured from a finished study to an indexed publication — not from the day you start writing.
A realistic timeline for a first Scopus Q1 or Q2 paper runs from about nine to eighteen months, measured from a finished study to an indexed publication — not from the day you start writing. For a first-time Vietnamese author working to a defence date, a scholarship milestone, or a promotion dossier, the more useful question is not "how long does it take?" but "counting backwards from my deadline, when do I need to start?" The two questions have very different answers, and confusing them is the most common planning mistake we see.
This guide sets out the realistic ranges stage by stage, explains why first-time authors consistently underestimate them, and shows how to build a backward-planned calendar from a fixed deadline so the wait becomes a schedule rather than a source of anxiety.
Author: MAAS Research Publishing Desk · Reviewed by a Principal Publishing Advisor (PhD, Scopus Q1 author and reviewer)
Last updated: 2026-07-07
Category: research-methods
How long does a first Scopus Q1 or Q2 paper realistically take, end to end?
Direct answer: For a first international submission, plan for roughly nine to eighteen months from a completed study to an indexed article. Peer review itself is only one segment of that span; journal selection, formatting, one or more revision rounds, and production each add their own weeks, and a single desk rejection that sends you back to the start can cost a month before review has even begun.
Evidence: Björk and Solomon (2013), analysing 2,700 papers across 135 Scopus-indexed journals, found that publishing delays vary sharply by field: business and economics averaged around eighteen months from submission to publication, roughly twice the nine-month average in chemistry. Powell (2016) reported that the median review time — submission to acceptance — has hovered near one hundred days for decades, while production time has fallen to a median of about twenty-five days. Because these segments run in sequence rather than in parallel, the totals accumulate, which is why a realistic end-to-end estimate sits well above the peer-review figure alone.
Example: A MAAS Publishing Advisory client in the social sciences assumed her paper would be "out" within six months because she had read that review takes three. Her mentor mapped the full sequence with her — six weeks of formatting, four months to a first decision, a major revision, then production — and reset the expectation to twelve to fourteen months. The paper was accepted at month eleven, comfortably inside the plan, precisely because the plan had been honest from the start.
Why do first-time Vietnamese authors underestimate the timeline?
Direct answer: The underestimate almost always comes from counting only the visible stage — peer review — and ignoring the segments that surround it. Journal shopping after a rejection, the time it takes to prepare a revision, and the extra care an English-language manuscript needs are real months, and they fall disproportionately on first-time and second-language authors who have not yet been through the cycle.
Evidence: Taşkın et al. (2022) found that papers by authors from central, high-income countries move through to publication faster than comparable work from elsewhere, and that a larger author team tends to lengthen rather than shorten the process — structural frictions a first-time Vietnamese author cannot simply write their way past. Huisman and Smits (2017) reported that authors take an average of thirty-nine days to prepare a revision, rising to sixty-four days in economics and business, and that even a desk rejection takes more than two weeks at one-third of journals and more than four weeks at one-sixth. Pham-Duc et al. (2020) documented that Vietnamese social-science output has grown quickly but still concentrates in lower-ranked outlets, which suggests that first-time authors aiming at Q1 or Q2 are often attempting an unfamiliar level of competition where rejection, and the re-submission it triggers, is more likely.
Example: A doctoral candidate brought us a timeline that budgeted zero time for rejection, on the assumption that a careful manuscript would be accepted at the first journal. Her mentor gently reframed this: a strong paper is not the same as a well-matched one, and building in a single "shop to a second journal" contingency, rather than treating it as failure, is what keeps a real deadline safe.
What does a realistic month-by-month timeline look like?
Direct answer: It helps to see the journey as a chain of dated segments rather than one long wait. The table below sets out realistic durations for a first Scopus Q1 or Q2 submission; the ranges are deliberately wide because field, journal, and revision depth all move the numbers.
Evidence: The stages and durations below are drawn from publisher process descriptions and the datasets in Björk and Solomon (2013), Huisman and Smits (2017), and Andersen et al. (2021), whose systematic review confirmed that submission-to-publication times vary widely even within a single discipline.
| Segment | What happens | Realistic duration |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness + contribution check | Confirm the claim is clear and defensible before submitting | 2–4 weeks |
| Journal selection | Build a three-tier shortlist by scope and citation fit | 2–3 weeks |
| Manuscript formatting | Reformat to the exact author guidelines of the chosen journal | 4–8 weeks |
| First decision | Desk screen, reviewer search, review, editor's decision | 2–5 months |
| Revision + re-review | Point-by-point response, revise, reviewers re-check | 1–3 months |
| Production + indexing | Proofs, copyright, publication, Scopus indexing | 1–3 months |
Example: A MAAS-coached author kept this table on her desk and marked each segment as she cleared it. When her manuscript sat in "first decision" for four months, she checked the row, saw the range was two to five, and waited calmly instead of emailing the editor prematurely — the schedule told her the silence was normal.
How do you work backwards from a fixed deadline?
Direct answer: Start from the date the publication must exist — a defence, a scholarship application, or a professorship dossier — and subtract the segments in reverse. Add a buffer of at least two to three months for the revision round and the reviewer search, which are the least predictable stages. The output is a "latest safe start date": the day by which the study must be finished and the first submission ready.
Evidence: Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training requires doctoral candidates to publish in indexed journals before defending, under Circular 08/2017/TT-BGDĐT, which makes the defence date a genuine hard constraint rather than a preference. Because Björk and Solomon (2013) showed that within-journal variation between individual papers is larger than the variation between journals or fields, no single average is safe to plan against; the buffer, not the average, is what protects the deadline.
Example: A candidate needed one indexed publication fourteen months before her defence. Working backwards, her mentor allotted three months of production, two months of revision, four months to a first decision, two months of formatting, and a two-month buffer — placing the latest safe start at eleven months out. She started immediately, chose a Q2 with a documented fast turnaround, and her acceptance arrived four months before the paperwork was due.
Does targeting a Q1 versus a Q2 journal change the timeline?
Direct answer: Yes, and the difference is often larger than the difference in prestige. A borderline Q1 submission carries a higher chance of desk rejection and a longer, more demanding review, so gambling on it can add an entire rejection-and-resubmission cycle — several months — to the calendar. For a first-time author under a real deadline, a well-matched Q2 is frequently the faster route to an indexed paper that still satisfies the requirement.
Evidence: Powell (2016) noted that journals with the very highest impact factors showed longer review times than mid-range titles, and that journal shopping alone added anywhere from a few days to more than eight months to publication. Björk and Solomon (2013) found the widest delays concentrated in the most competitive social-science and business outlets — exactly the category many first-time authors over-reach for.
Example: Two MAAS clients submitted in the same month. The author who targeted a fitting Q2 was accepted after one revision at month nine; the author who insisted on a stretch Q1 was desk-rejected, re-submitted elsewhere, and reached acceptance at month sixteen. Same quality of work — seven months separated them, and the gap was the journal choice, not the writing.
Which parts of the timeline can you actually control?
Direct answer: You cannot compress the peer-review clock — reviewer availability and editorial pace are out of your hands. What you can control sits on either side of it: how quickly you produce a review-ready, well-matched first submission, and how fast and how completely you turn a revision around. Those two levers are where a disciplined author saves months.
Evidence: Andersen et al. (2021) found the spread in submission-to-publication times so wide that the journal and the author's own responsiveness, rather than the field average, largely determined the outcome. Huisman and Smits (2017) showed that revision time is substantial and highly variable, which means a fast, thorough point-by-point response is one of the few genuine accelerators available to an author.
Example: A MAAS client received a major revision with eleven comments and, instead of stalling, returned a structured response within three weeks using the Outline → Draft → Final model with her mentor. The paper was accepted on the next round. The author sitting on an identical decision for three months would have added that delay to her own timeline for no gain.
When should a first-time Vietnamese author start, to be safe?
Direct answer: If your deadline is inside twelve months, start now and choose deliberately for speed — a well-matched Q2 with a documented fast first decision — rather than gambling on a slow, prestigious title. If your deadline is eighteen months or more away, you have room to attempt a stronger journal with a rejection contingency built in. The safest start date is always earlier than it feels, because the buffer, not the best-case average, is what carries a real deadline.
Evidence: The combined picture from Björk and Solomon (2013), Powell (2016), and Andersen et al. (2021) is consistent: totals are long, variance is high, and the tail is heavy. Planning to the average leaves roughly half of all papers running late; planning to a realistic range with a buffer is what keeps the defence, the scholarship, or the dossier on schedule.
Example: A lecturer needed a Scopus paper for an Associate Professor application eighteen months out. Because the runway was generous, her mentor supported a Q2-primary, Q1-stretch plan with a clear switch point: if the Q1 had not returned a first decision by a set date, she would move to the Q2 without hesitation. She never needed the fallback — but knowing it existed let her aim high without risking the deadline.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to publish a first Scopus paper?
Plan for roughly nine to eighteen months from a finished study to an indexed article. Peer review is only part of that; journal selection, formatting, revision, and production each add weeks, and a rejection can reset the clock.
Is a Q1 paper slower to publish than a Q2 paper?
Often, yes. Borderline Q1 submissions face higher desk-rejection rates and longer reviews, so for a first-time author under a deadline, a well-matched Q2 is frequently the faster route to an indexed paper that still meets the requirement.
How far ahead of my defence should I start?
Work backwards from the defence date, subtract the segments, and add a two- to three-month buffer for revision and the reviewer search. For most first-time authors that places the latest safe start at eleven to fourteen months before the deadline.
Can I speed up peer review by paying a fee?
No. An article processing charge is an open-access publication fee paid only after acceptance; it does not buy faster review. Any journal promising guaranteed fast acceptance for a fee is a warning sign of a predatory outlet.
Do Vietnamese or second-language authors face a longer timeline?
The review itself is not slower, but avoidable delays — a desk rejection for scope or language, or a slower revision round — are more common on a first submission. A well-matched, well-edited first submission is the main defence against them.
Can MAAS help me plan my publication timeline?
Yes. MAAS Publishing Advisory helps Vietnamese researchers build a backward-planned calendar, shortlist journals by realistic speed, and prepare a review-ready submission through the Outline → Draft → Final model. Book a consultation through our contact page.
Ready to build a timeline that protects your deadline?
The publishing clock is long and uneven, and most of it is genuinely out of your control — but the two segments that decide whether you make your deadline, a well-matched first submission and a fast, complete revision, are entirely within it. A mentor who has published and reviewed on the other side of the desk turns a vague "nine to eighteen months" into a dated plan with a latest safe start.
MAAS pairs you with a PhD-level publishing mentor (23% of our experts hold PhDs) within 48 hours, and our coaching carries a three-tier Pass / Merit / Distinction guarantee plus a 90-day warranty. Your first 20-minute consultation is free. We coach; you stay the author, với sự đồng hành của chuyên gia MAAS.
Book a Publishing Advisory consultation with MAAS Academic Mentoring →
Related guides
- How long does peer review take for a Scopus journal? — a closer look at the single longest segment in this timeline
- How do you publish your first international paper as a Vietnamese researcher? — the full stage-by-stage journey this schedule sits inside
- How do you choose the right Scopus journal? — matching your paper to a well-fitting, right-speed journal
- What is the difference between a Q1 and a Q2 journal? — how quartiles work and which to target under a deadline
- How do you respond to a major revision from a Scopus journal? — turning the revision segment around quickly
- Publishing Advisory service — full service tiers for Scopus Q1/Q2 support
- Scopus Publishing resource hub — journal-selection and timeline-planning templates
Tools & resources
- Scimago Journal & Country Rank — check a journal's quartile and subject ranking before you commit: https://www.scimagojr.com/
- Elsevier Journal Insights — per-journal time-to-first-decision data for speed planning: https://journalinsights.elsevier.com
- SciRev — community database of real review durations by journal and field: https://scirev.org
References
- Andersen, M. Z., Fonnes, S., & Rosenberg, J. (2021). Time from submission to publication varied widely for biomedical journals: A systematic review. Current Medical Research and Opinion, 37(6), 985–993. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2021.1905622
- Björk, B.-C., & Solomon, D. (2013). The publishing delay in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Journal of Informetrics, 7(4), 914–923. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.09.001
- Huisman, J., & Smits, J. (2017). Duration and quality of the peer review process: The author's perspective. Scientometrics, 113, 633–650. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5
- Pham-Duc, B., Tran, T., Trinh, T. P. T., Nguyen, T.-T., Nguyen, N.-T., & Le, H. T. T. (2020). A spike in the scientific output on social sciences in Vietnam for recent three years: Evidence from bibliometric analysis in the Scopus database (2000–2019). Journal of Information Science. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551520977447
- Powell, K. (2016). Does it take too long to publish research? Nature, 530(7589), 148–151. https://doi.org/10.1038/530148a
- Taşkın, Z., Taşkın, A., Doğan, G., & Kulczycki, E. (2022). Factors affecting time to publication in information science. Scientometrics, 127(12), 7499–7515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04296-8
This article is part of the MAAS Journal series for Vietnamese international postgraduate students and researchers. MAAS Publishing Advisory is an advisory partner — we coach authors through the Outline → Draft → Final delivery model with developmental feedback from PhD-level, Scopus-published mentors. We do not write, submit, or guarantee acceptance of work on an author's behalf.