Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [136]
11. Sending the second wave of submissions: Then, if you haven't gotten any offers by two or three weeks later, send your article to the next 50 general journals, or even to more than that. How long you wait should depend on the timing of your initial submission, see item 1; if you submitted late in the cycle, then don't wait long until sending the second batch. Definitely do not wait until all the journals in your first wave reject you—many of the journals won't send you a rejection notice for many months, and some will never send it.
12. Wait for an offer.
13. Getting the offer's expiration date: If you get an offer, ask how long you have to decide whether to accept it. The journals usually give you from twenty-four hours to two weeks, though they'll sometimes give more. If they don't give you a deadline, ask for two weeks—that's not unreasonable, and other journals are usually well-equipped to consider your shop-up requests (see item 15) within two weeks. You generally don't have to accept the offer on the spot, though if the journal does insist on an immediate answer, you may want to say yes if the journal is good enough that you doubt you'll do much better.
14. Getting the offer's terms: Listen closely to the offer to hear whether they're offering you publication as a student Note, as opposed to as a full-fledged article. Such student Note offers are not as good, though they're better than nothing. If the journal is just offering to publish your piece as a student Note, call other journals to see if you can get an article offer from a comparably ranked or even slightly lowerranked journal.
If you'd like, you might ask the journal to send you an e-mail confirming the expiration date. It's good to have for future reference, just so there's no misunderstanding; and such an e-mail will likely also indicate whether the offer of publication is as an article or as a Note.
15. Shopping up: a. E-mail all the journals on your list that are ranked substantially higher, and tell them that you have an offer from the first journal and that you'd like an expedited review. ExpressO lets you do this very easily, and also keeps a record of whom you've e-mailed this way.
Such shopping up can often get you an offer from a more prestigious place. It's considered ethically permissible. It's expected (though of course not relished) by the journals. And it's done all the time. If the other journals need more time than the original journal gave you, you might be able to persuade the original journal's editors to give you an extension, especially if you give them something in return (for instance, a promise that you'll shop up the article only to a small set of journals, and withdraw it from the others).
This process may seem tacky, and many people have argued that this system, where authors submit articles to many places and then shop up offers to higher-ranked journals, unfairly wastes student editors' time. This may be a good argument, and it might be good if people could come up with another system for doing this.
Still, I feel obligated to give you the advice that's best for you as an author. As a journal editor, you might understandably resent the current system—but until it's changed, as an author you ought to know the most effective way of operating within it. Professors know these rules. You're entitled to know them, too.
b. Unless your original offer was merely for publication as a student Note (see point 14 above) or has a short deadline, you should probably call only those journals that are substantially higher-ranked. There's no real difference between a primary journal at school 30 on the list and the one at school