Ensuring Blind Review

We aim to ensure the integrity of the blind peer review for submission to this journal. This requires the authors' cooperation.

Authors should endeavour to prevent their identities from being known to the reviewer.
This involves the authors following steps with regard to the text and the file properties.

Checklist for ensuring a blind review

  1. Authors' names should not appear.
  2. Title (remove any identifying information)
  3. Cite papers published by the Authors in the text as follows: (Author, 2023)
  4. Limit self-references only to relevant papers for those reviewing the submitted paper.
  5. For blinding in the reference list: (Author 2019), you may choose to upload a separate version or be prepared to work with our Copy Editor to complete these details
  6. Make sure figures and tables, including figure and table labels and captions, don't contain any affiliation-related identifiers
  7. Remove references to funding sources
  8. Do not include acknowledgements (these will be sought later by the Copy Editor)
  9. Remove any identifying information from file names
  10. Ensure document properties are also anonymized (see below)
    1. Author identification should also be removed from the properties for the Word file before submission.  beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application. If you do not know how to do this, simply web search for 'Anonymising Word Documents' for guidance pertinent to your version and operating system.