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Compromising integrity of review process


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I'm the editorial assistant for a journal and handle all of the tasks of removing an author's name from an article and sending articles to reviewers. I sent one a few weeks ago to a reviewer after I had "scrubbed" it of all traces of the author's name (including removing the author's identifying information in the properties tab on Word docs). I sent it to the reviewer, got his review back a bit later, and sent it off to the editors. After getting both reviews back, I sent the author a revise and resubmit request based on the reviewers' feedback per the editors' wishes. 

The only problem is that I realized that in the original article I sent to the reviewer, I missed one place where the author's name was left intact. I emailed the reviewer once I realized this, who said that he has his suspicions of who it might be based on the fact that he is an outside reader for a dissertation on the topic, but that he did not in fact see the author's name left in the article. He is someone in the field who can be trusted (and is actually a clergyman in addition to his academic appointment) so I don't have any qualms about whether or not he's telling the truth. I 100% think that the integrity of the review process was upheld.

My only question is: Is my mishap something I should tell the editors? I can't think of anything that would come of them knowing since A) the reviewer did not see the identifying information at all and B) the article is already progressing through the process and can't really be retracted now. 

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I think if it were me I'd let the editors know just so everything is out in the open, with all the information as you specify here. I don't think this is a big deal at all or that it would change the outcome for this paper, but in all fairness I think the editor should know just in case that might affect how they value the reviewer's opinion. For example, if there ends up being any disagreement between reviewers, knowing that one of them identified (or might have identified) the author might be relevant information. 

I'm also always fascinated by how different fields work. In mine, it's the author's responsibility to remove identifying information before submitting. It's also frankly not all that hard to have an informed guess as to who wrote any particular paper I might be reviewing since my subfield/topic isn't huge, but that's a separate issue. 

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Seconded. Tell the editor, but don't worry about it. Even if the reviewer had noticed, it's not that big a deal (plus, in that case they should have alerted you).

 

(My field is also one where authors usually have to mask their own papers. But, having done some editorial work, I can say that authors really suck at doing it.)

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