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I would like to publish a math paper quickly. The level of journal is not that important (except that it should not send out spam with its own ads).

I am looking for a math journal which decides within a month whether to publish or reject a submitted paper. Do such journals exist?

asv
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    It would help if you expanded your question stating why you need this quick turnaround time. For instance, is it because you wish to add an accepted paper on your CV for an application? In this way people can give better answers: for instance, we can leave out some predatory journals for which "accepted on XXX" on your application would not help your cause. – Federico Poloni Jun 14 '21 at 13:02
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    I'm voting to close, sorry; the premise here seems highly dubious and unrelated to the purpose of MO. – Sam Hopkins Jun 14 '21 at 13:21
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    Does this answer your question? Fast turn-around times [YK: automatically generated comment after voting to close as duplicate] – Yoav Kallus Jun 14 '21 at 14:19

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Don't go there, no reputable journal can validate your work in a four week time frame.

If they do promise that, for a fee, you can bet this is a predatory journal. (Meaning: their business model is to publish as much as they can for substantial author charges, rather than to validate and reject submissions for scientific reasons.)

Now if you are concerned with priority, just posting the manuscript on arXiv will establish that. So there is no real need to chase a rapid publication time in this day and age.

Carlo Beenakker
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    There is no real need to chase a rapid publication time in this day and age. For people who need jobs, there is a real need. Those of us with tenure can afford to be a little more relaxed, I admit. – Ben Webster Jun 14 '21 at 14:05
  • @BenWebster For jobs, I think that most people will agree that acceptance suffices. – 2734364041 Jun 14 '21 at 16:59
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    @2734364041 That may be, but the point still stands. People who need jobs may need rapid acceptance times, and the arXiv does nothing to address that need. – Timothy Chow Jun 14 '21 at 23:23
  • @2734364041 The question was about acceptance, not publication times. – Ben Webster Jun 15 '21 at 17:19
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    @BenWebster your jobs argument shows that there is a real need to chase rapid publication time in reputable journals. Unfortunately, the reputable journals are precisely the ones that will not satisfy that need. – Dan Romik Jun 15 '21 at 21:00
  • @DanRomik Sadly true. I was just pointing out that it is a reasonable thing to be concerned about, though I think the OP's deadline of a month is just unrealistic. I would be overjoyed if I consistently got responses within 6 months. – Ben Webster Jun 16 '21 at 19:39
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I do not think that any journal would guarantee a decision within a month; it might take a month to find a referee. Sometimes, a journal will give its editors the freedom to summarily reject a paper that they find wanting, and that can certainly happen in less than a month.

The quickest reputable journal I know of is Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). Their website guarantees a decision within 7 weeks. But papers submitted there must be fairly short and of very broad interest. The vast majority of papers submitted there are rejected.

For more traditional journals, be prepared for a minimum wait of 6 months. Also, note that a referee who agrees to review your paper might be adversely affected by the pandemic, which might affect the turnaround time.

2734364041
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While not one month, the new journal "La Matematica" aims for giving a decision within 2 months from submission.

Note that the promise to be quick is also related to the fact that this journal is Doubly-Anonymous, so they realize many authors who submit there might not want to put their papers on the arxiv before acceptance.

the L
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    "We use this term [Doubly-Anonymous] rather than the (currently) more common term using ableist language". I really do not understand. To me, it seems more ableist deciding to eliminate the metaphorical (and innocent) use of "blind", as if blindness were something to be ashamed of, or not to be said. But it is surely my fault... – Francesco Polizzi Jun 14 '21 at 13:51
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    Thinking of this, maybe the relevant question is: are there any evidences that the majority of people with vision impairment consider the metaphor "double blind review" (or "double blind experiment", or "double blind trial") as offensive? But ok, this is off-topic here. – Francesco Polizzi Jun 14 '21 at 15:07
  • @FrancescoPolizzi The use of "blind" in this context doesn't strike me as ableist either, but "anonymous" does have the virtue of being more precise. Only the names/identities of the people concerned are suppressed; other communication is allowed to happen. – Timothy Chow Jun 14 '21 at 23:36
  • @TimothyChow: Yes, I agree that "Doubly-Anonymous" is a precise description of this kind of refereeing process. – Francesco Polizzi Jun 15 '21 at 00:01
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    @FrancescoPolizzi I think this is an interesting read on the subject: https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/02/20/an-end-to-blind-review/ In very short terms: the point is not that being being "blind" is something to be ashamed of, but that the point of "blind review" is a metaphorical use of "blind" that makes it synonymous with "ignorant" which I can certainly see people being bothered by (some other similar expressions in English are more obviously negative: "I was blinded to X by Y," etc.). – Ben Webster Jun 15 '21 at 17:29
  • @BenWebster: thanks for the link. I must say that I am not really convinced by Tremain's claim that, since the "blind reviewer" does not know the author, this "conditions us to consider blind people as those who are lacking the ability to fully know the world, and this perpetuates negative stereotypes about blind people". This inference seems to me a bit of a leap. However, I get her point. – Francesco Polizzi Jun 15 '21 at 18:07
  • I must add that I am not a native English speaker, so maybe I miss some nuances when considering the metaphorical expressions. – Francesco Polizzi Jun 15 '21 at 18:14
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    @FrancescoPolizzi If you ask Google for the meaning of "blind," the relevant definition is "lacking perception, awareness, or discernment" which I regard as meaning essentially the same as "lacking the ability to fully know the world." I must add that I am not a native English speaker, so maybe I miss some nuances when considering the metaphorical expressions. Another excellent argument for not using these kind of metaphors, since they don't translate well into all languages and cultures. – Ben Webster Jun 16 '21 at 19:34
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    It seems that the journal guidelines switched back on the classical "double-blind" terminology. I do not know the reason ("double-anonymous" was ok, after all): https://www.springer.com/journal/44007/submission-guidelines – Francesco Polizzi Sep 01 '21 at 21:51
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If your paper is very short (less than 10 pages), well-written and with a fairly straightforward proof, you can try Comptes Rendus Mathematiques https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/mathematique/. It is a reputable journal, and depending on the area there are several examples where the paper is accepted within a week (again, for that it must not require any revisions).

If your paper is longer, maybe you can extract a key lemma and submit it to that journal.

Archie
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