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Resources > Journal Authors/Editors/Reviewers > Journal Author Gateway > Manuscript submission guidelines > Preparing your manuscript

Manuscript preparation for double-anonymized journals

Preparing your manuscript for submission to a double-anonymized journal

For journals that use double-anonymized peer review, authors are required to submit:

  1. A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymized. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
  2. A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymized information. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.

Note: Cover letters are not sent to reviewers.

Anonymizing your manuscript

Where present, the following identifiable information should be treated as follows:

  • Remove author names, emails and affiliations
  • Remove the Acknowledgements
  • Anonymize the Conflict of Interest statement where a competing interest exists, e.g.:
    • The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: [details omitted for double-anonymized peer review]
  • Anonymize the trial registration number and date
  • Anonymize the funding source(s), e.g.:
    • The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by [details omitted for double-anonymized peer review]
  • Avoid using self-citations. If you include an essential self-citation then:
    • The citation should not be anonymized
    • If necessary, it should referred to in the third person, e.g. write "Jones and Xi (2020) have shown", not "we have previously shown (Jones & Xi, 2020)".​

  • If the journal you are submitting to mandates research data sharing and requires links to the data to be shared at submission, the data should be deposited in a repository that preserves author anonymity. The data can then be viewed anonymously during the peer review process.

    • Figshare is a repository that can be used to generate a ‘private sharing link’ for free which can be sent via email, and which you can add to your manuscript. The recipient can then access that data without having a Figshare account, and this link anonymizes the data for reviewers. These links expire after one year and should not be cited in publications.

Author Response to Reviewer Comments

Author Responses to Reviewer comments can be entered directly in and/or attached to the submission form. When attaching responses, authors should ensure that file metadata and any comments are anonymized.