True story on me. When we submitted my three Journal of Neurophysiology papers on electrophysiological estimates of neuroanatomy, back when submissions were done on paper, the printer somehow decided to print the same bibliography item at the bottom of one page and the top of the other in the References section When we got the reviews back, one reviewer quipped "while this was a seminal paper, citing it twice was a bit much," We knew based on the authors of that paper, their colleagues, and their sense of humor, that the reviewer would have to be one of four people. And lo and behold, at a conference a few months later, one of our suspects cheerfully came up to us and asked us how the project was coming.

Moral of the story: in a finite field, it is easy to identify "anonymous" authors and reviewers through their interests and their writing style. Reviewers, like editors, are best seen as collaborators, helping to make the finished work stronger.

It is already double-blind in some journals...

I think always possible peer review must be double blind in order to keep clear and unquestionable all proccess once what we desire about scientific published article it is that it will be free of bias or doubt we are producing and spreading quality research. Only like this we will be giving contribuition to improve life worldwide.

The peer review process must be double blinded.

The peer review process can even be made TRIPLE-BLIND, where the reviewer also should not be revealed to the editorial board. This will nullify maximally the experimenter bias and placebo effects......

A. I believe that the double-blind reviewing process is quite often a double fiction.

First, if an author is not a novice in his field he is naturally prone to refer to his previous publications- and so any reviewer can understand whose manuscript he (or she) is reviewing; morover, if he wants to learn something relevant about this author, it would be easy to find this information through the Internet.

Second, when you submit your manuscript to a Journal you are, as a rule, asked to name several eligible (as well as undesired) reviewers. Nobody can prevent your next step: to inform your friends that they were proposed by you and thus to hint that you will be able to guess that it were just they who gave good or bad comments.

B. I believe that the blind reviewing is doubly amoral.

First, if a scientist is honest he (or she) shoul overtly give his opinion about a manuscript, even if negative.

Second, if he (or she) is dishonest, he would be prone to abuse a rival's work hoping that nobody will ever know about this.

The review process should be double blind in order to avoid potential problems from a non double blind process. Nevertheless, many times editors sent to you papers with authors information, and you must do your work anyway. The advantage of knowing the authors is that you could see their previous papers. The objective of the review is to do an analysis of the methods, results and discussion, detect inconsistencies and weakenesess and suggest (if possible) how to improve the paper making it suitable for publication. This work should not depend on who are the authors.

Thus, on the one hand, "the review process should be double blind in order to avoid potential problems from a non double blind process" but, on the other hand,"the advantage of knowing the authors is that you (meaning a reviewer) could see their previous papers". Rather contradictory a statement indeed! If I it is taken seriously, the blindness you like so much is not so double as one-sided, and it is just the author who should be absolutely blind. The situation is very convenient for biased reviewers, and unforunately, it is quite real.

Prof. Boris Katsnelson, you brought up a lot of interesting points, made me think certainly!! It certainly made me understand a bit more why there is little point in hiding the authors name, but then, do you think the name of the reviewers should be revealed to the authors? I know that a lot of people say "if it is not double-blinded, then it should be transparent both ways", but I am almost more scared of the prejudice that authors may have against the reviewers, then the other way. I mean, if you get criticism from a person you don't respect or simply don't like, I feel you are more likely to not take the criticism as a valid one, and not even stop to think if that criticism could improve your work.

I just feel that who is in the receiving end of criticism may be more prone to prejudice. I am not sure I agree with people who say it should be transparent. I think if it can not or should not be double-blinded, then it should be as it is now....

Dear Fernanda! I am sure that if you want to see your paper published you'll have to comply with reviewers' comments or to try and convince the Editor that they are not valid, independent on whether you respect or dislike persons who made them. You'll simply have no alternative.

Besides, the Journals which ask authors to name undesirable reviewers help to prevent just the situation you are so scared of.

And more: I think that authors has the right to understand whether their reviewers are their peers indeed.

To summarize: unlike most colleages who have already answered your question (and unlike yourself) I maintain that the peer- reviewing process should rather be both way transparent.

Prof. Katsnelson - I don't disagree with you. In fact, I don't have a formed opinion on the matter, I was just glad to hear your points, as I don't usually see people defending the side you defend. I don't expect to change the way things are, and in reality I don't have a problem with the way things are. I was just happy to hear all sides, and I thought it was a constructive discussion to raise. If everyone had just answered one way it would not have been so productive, so I really appreciate your points.

Is not it an excellent model of democracy? Discussion is comparing different points of view and things remain what they are. Still one may hope that it is not forever.

Doble bind is necessary to avoid prejudices, but reviewers make their job following the requeriments of the editorial team. That means, that if you receive the paper with authors information, you can do two things: reject the review or make it. If you want not to know the authors names and affiliation you must indicate this to the editor. There is no other problem. Many reviewers can think there is not any problem with knowing the authors names and affiliations.

"Many reviewers can think there is not any problem with knowing the authors names and affiliations" (Dr. Plans-Rubio).

Did anybody ask the authors what do THEY think about reviewers' knowing their names? I wonder.

Does anybody doubt that they (authors) too would not see any problem with knowing their reviewers' names? I wonder still more.

Yes, Peer review should be double blinded other wise author can influence the reviewers. It will give more work load on the Section Editor. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology have a system of keeping confidential our reviewers.

Nobody is without unconscious bias re names(particlularly non-American sounding ones) or toward certain institutions: The higher the latter's status, (profesional envy?) the higher seems a egative bias. l. Best would be double-blind reviweing in my opinion.

Nobody is without unconscious bias . Work with the unconscious will overcome it.

Overnumbered but not convinced, I quit.

I have reviewed for journals who have blinded reviews as well as those that have open review process. I can often (though not always) figure out who the authors are (or at least some of the authors) so I don't think it really 'protects' the authors from having their identity known. I also believe that most reviewers (again, may not be all) try to be as unbiased as humanly possible and only evaluate what is in the article and not who wrote it. So my own leaning is towards the practice of seeing the article in its entirety including the authors. Sometimes this also gives me an opportunity to really look at a situation with respect to the 'expertise' of the authors and avoid comments that I sometimes get from a journal like "The authors should consult a statistician for proper analysis" when in fact I am one of the authors and (hopefully) am a fully qualified statistician; it is not what the qualification of the author is, but rather how have they applied the knowledge that should matter and I don't believe knowing or not knowing the authors should have any influence on this.

There are examples of how knowing the Author can affect the decision as to whether or not an idea or result is given scientific credence. There are a number of them historically, but I will not spend time here expounding them. There is no doubt that as Human Beings we are subject to our pre- existing belief structures, the need to perform a service, or motivation to fit into a specific social circle. In essence, if one knows whom the authors are, the need to agree with them if they are of high standing is far more tempting. If there is no possibility of repercussion for making a decision, how would a reviewer react in specific circumstances, if they knew who they were evaluating? Though criteria are in place to ensure a 'fair' outcome, how 'fair' could it be on a scientific basis? The Human Factor is always present. With anything, as others such as Anneliese has pointed out, we are all subject to subconscious processes. As a result, is it better to know, or not to know? By not knowing who the Authors are, it does provide a better opportunity for emotive processes, social influence, professional influence and bias to be lessened. By Reviewers being visible to Authors, and Authors to Reviewers this may increase pressure to return a decision which favours a specific outcome, and could have a long-term outcome for the Reviewer on their career, as well as the Author.

True story on me. When we submitted my three Journal of Neurophysiology papers on electrophysiological estimates of neuroanatomy, back when submissions were done on paper, the printer somehow decided to print the same bibliography item at the bottom of one page and the top of the other in the References section When we got the reviews back, one reviewer quipped "while this was a seminal paper, citing it twice was a bit much," We knew based on the authors of that paper, their colleagues, and their sense of humor, that the reviewer would have to be one of four people. And lo and behold, at a conference a few months later, one of our suspects cheerfully came up to us and asked us how the project was coming.

Moral of the story: in a finite field, it is easy to identify "anonymous" authors and reviewers through their interests and their writing style. Reviewers, like editors, are best seen as collaborators, helping to make the finished work stronger.

There is a great controversy on this theme. I think there are some exterme opinions against the single-blind style of review. In fact, it is a matter of review style, which depends on the journalist and editorial team. Some participants on this controversy have explained clearly that the double-blind styte, despite desirable, is not real. There are many ways of knowing who are the authors. It is important to see that a review is not a clinical trial, and that there are pros and cons of different styles.

I recommend to read the article about peer review on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

Part of the answer is also to provide clear guidelines for constructive feedback for reviewers. Nothing more disheartening, and unprofessional in my view than an unsubstantiated 'don't like it' from a reviewer that is accepted by the editor without even giving a right of reply.

Although I promised to quit, now I'd like to come back with 2 more considerations:

(1) If your manuscript was reviewed by three so-called peers of whom one found it excellent, another one was not so exited but still quite in favour of its publication, and the third one was decidedly against it maintainig that your work was a trash - whose appraisal will prevail more often than not? I give you three guesses but you can understand which will be true according to my experience.

(2) If each paper submitted for publication in scientific journals can be peer-reviewed by 2 or even 3 persons, you should assume that for any particular problem there exist 2-3 times more specialists than those who authored that paper based on their real research. This phantastic ratio should make understandable the authors' right to have some doubts concerning their critics being their peers indeed, and thus, their right to know who they are.

Dr. Boris, I will complement your last point saying that not just for credibility, but also to give due credit. I recently had a reviewer who was so thorough, he/she actually improved my paper more than any co-author. His/her notes were excellent. I acknowledged "an anonymous reviewer", but I wish I could have given him or her the due credit personally.

Yes, it is another argument in favour of the both ways transparency.

Well, i believe that there is no right-or-wrong for this question. Personally, i have been harshly criticised by reviewers, have been treated with empathy and, as already mentioned, since each scientific topic is usually quite narrow and focused and thus we are all 'acquaintances', is it really too difficult to guess who is behind a 'strict' review? So Boris Katsnelson is actually correct: and if I may add: why should necessarily the reviewing process ought to be the one way or the other? I have reviewed numerous articles, i have been working as a professional reviewer and associate editor for several years, and lots of times i know who i review but also the refereed knows who reviews him/her. So i think it is finally more sincere and also more interactive for the reviewing process to know the name and other details of the reviewer. What i may propose however is that this could be the choice of each author when he/she submits the manuscript. And, anyway, if there are cases of misjudgement or empathy, i think this is not an issue of the author or the reviewer, it is actually the responsibility of the editor; or at least that's the way it should be.

...and so as not to misinterpret my opinion, as i do not like to be harshly reviewed, or at least without any plausible explanation and justification, i, myself, very rarely reject manuscripts, as i think that the whole reviewing process is not actually about deciding on who is 'publishable' and who or what not, but the point is to help others improve their work by reviewing and editing in a good sense their scientific effort. So, if you allow me to give also the 'other side of the story', wouldn't it be nice and 'thankful' to know who is the reviewer who potentially made such fruitful comments so that the manuscript can be really enhanced? Not trying to be persuasive, just displaying another point of view (and somehow not necessarily claiming it to be 100% correct).

first of all we should always assume the paper has been written ethically: so a double blind peer review is apt: to be more precise the journal/editor handling should always invite an expert in the specific area that paper covers and not just send it to a broad subject specialist: example., A paper on diphyllobothrium should be reviewed by a researcher who has already significantly contributed to that field

Blind review can assure transparency

Hard to add to, or disagree with most if above, but I would suggest reading this article by a successful academic which has stories similar to Mitchell & Sydneys above. If only to make us feel better about what I suggest is largely an intractable problem...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229738178_Prose_Psychopaths_and_Persistence_Personal_Perspectives_on_Publishing?ev=prf_pub_bmark

Article Prose, Psychopaths and Persistence: Personal Perspectives on...

Hmmm, or Mendeley..? ...sounds like a public hanging. There is a limit to what can be regulated, and we can only create a system of regulation that reduces the probability of abuse of power within reviewing. I've had some great and terrible reviewers. Here's a version of the report above presented at a workshop.

an open peer review i will support: condition the reviewer is not influenced in any way and he should have been an expert in the field you have written the paper (high impact publications in the area of article); most of the indian journals (my experience) are not following this : A Medical microbiology PG teacher is sent a article for review where he has no contribution significantly:

to make it more clear I have written a paper on Diphyllobothrium case from India which was only the fourth in all India: sent to 3-4 indian journals/journals where Indians were editorial members got rejected:

Later sent to Journal of Medical case reports where the reviewers names and comments are revealed: I found that my article was reviewed by one expert who has high impact publications in the area concerned:

Such kind of peer reviews will surely benefit us

Dear Sydney bush not really understood your anguish but believe me after all your arguments I stand by you for non discrimination

Dear Ruth, what you have just said can be translated as follows: "I am for a double blind reviewing although I know very well that it is a fiction and that the real system is blind only for authors - so let them perish (if they are not already established ones)!" So. although in the RG downgrading of answers is really blind, I confess: it is I who pressed the orange button. I am sorry!

Dear Ruth, yes "the authors will not perish if only the PRs do what they have to do free of bias" - but do they always? If you believe they do, your experience is quite rosy indeed! I am afraid an unbiased reviewer is hardly possible, in principle: if, when assessing a work, you take into account the reputation of the scientific institution where it has been done and the main author's standing, or a lack of both as far as you know (which is quite natural to do) you are biased from the start point.

Well, as a double blind peer-reviewing process is virtually impossible, I am for the double open (a lesser evil). If a scientist is not honest enough to criticize my work openly he is not my peer at all and he should find a way of bread-earning outside the science.

If you look through all the discussion around this question, you'll see that my opinion from the very beginning was as it is stated here.