Have you ever gotten an invitation to review a paper for a journal and you were pretty sure who the author was? What did you or would you do? Do you reject to write a review? If it's a friend, do you do them a favour and write a nice review? If it's a rival, do you take the chance and be hyper critical or even thwart the publication? Do you find it easy to be objective when you know who the person is?
The authors names will be on the draft. You have to declare that you have an interest either way and remove yourself from the process. Most reviews are on-line now and you have to make a compulsory declaration. But you should not even consider the possibility of being dishonest in any way in research! This is not a matter of giving your friends 'likes' in a harmless competition on FaceBook. I'm actually annoyed that these options even came to someone's mind :(
Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman I agree with your ethical stance. It might be that you come from a different field. In my field, it is a rather small community of people who work on the subject. So it is quite common to guess who the author of a blindly submitted paper is. Actually, to be clueless about the identity of the author is the exception. If everyone were to reject all reviews where they have an idea who the author is, the review process would probably come to a standstill.
Double blind peer review is good. But for other case reviewers should be honest or he/she should not go through the process in that case. Everyone should maintain research ethics and honesty.
There is absolutely no problem in divulging the names of the authors if the reviewers are not biased
I think that the current system of revealing the names of authors and their affiliation is very wrong. I think it as a Deemed University exam where examiner has full control over the candidate and will not let the candidate pass the exam unless and until he is satisfied or he is favorable to the candidate. The present scenario of single blind review should be abolished and there should be tight rules regarding the compliance of double blind peer review in which both parties does not get to know each other. Hence, the system is transparent and helpful to the authors as well to the research.
Blind Peer Review: It is an essential step in a trusted publication process.
Thanks,
Emad
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