Thanking reviewers in acknowledgements

[shadowclaw]

So I'm in the process of revising a manuscript based on reviewer comments and I need to update the acknowledgements to thank the reviewers and editor. In the first paper I had published, this was easy. Two anonymous reviewers, a subject editor, and the editor in chief. However, one of my reviewers on this current paper is most definitely not anonymous. I cited one of his papers and made some comparisons between my study and his. His very first comment was "this is a nice followup to our pilot study" and then gave the citation. His last comment was to correct a typo in one of the in-text citations where I misspelled his last name, and he literally wrote "you misspelled my last name" and gave the correct spelling. So there is no mystery whatsoever as to who he is.

So my question is: should I thank him as part of the "thanks to two anonymous reviewers" line, or should I actually write "thanks to Dr. X for his reviewer comments" since I know who he is?

[fuzzylogician]

Could you ask the editor what they recommend? (I recently had a review where a reviewer's identity was accidentally revealed, so I consulted with the editors and they said to just use the person's name, since I knew it. But they could have said otherwise, and it would have made us much sense, as far as I am concerned.)

Edit: come to think of it, not long ago I actually had someone email me about a paper of mine they reviewed before the paper was officially accepted, and I think the acknowledgements still say something about the anonymous reviewers. But this is a case where that correspondence was private, so I kept it that way. So, not exactly identical.

[ShogunT]

If it is a double-blind peer review, which is very likely so, I personally think you have two choices:

First, address the reviewers as anonymous.

Second, report to the editor, which may end up getting that reviewer removed from his/her position, and you will be likely to be asked to address the reviewer as anonymous.

[TakeruK]

I think this depends on the field too. In my field, reviews are not double-blind and are only optionally single-blind. Authors don't know who the reviewers are, but the reviewers will know who the authors are.

The editors in my field's main journals encourage reviewers to maintain anonymity but do not actually require it. So, some reviewers choose to sign their review with their name (sometimes they won't sign the first review but they will sign the second one that says they think your changes are great and it's ready for publication). They usually do so if it's a positive review. And, it's not rare for reviewers to do things that reveal their identity like correcting spelling of their name or mentioning that it's a good update of their work (Sidenote: In my field, if you are submitting a paper that is an update of X's work, you're likely going to get X as your reviewer).

And, if the reviewer doesn't reveal themself in the review, they might tell you the next time they see you in person.

I think you should do several things:

Find out what the norm is in your field. You can ask other students or your advisor. If you are in a field like ShogunT's where letting the editor know that the referee revealed themselves would get that person in trouble, keep that in mind in your choice of actions too. (Although in my field, all referee comments go through the editor first so the editor would already know this, however, they might not have read it carefully enough to notice it).

As others suggested, check with the editor. You might even ask the editor to ask the referee for their opinion (like fuzzy said, maybe they are comfortable revealing themselves to you in a semi-private communication but don't want to be identified publicly). I would also say ask the referee directly, however, my field's journals strongly discourages direct contact between referee and authors (more so than anonymity). The journals tend to want all communication to go through the editor, through official channels that will leave a paper trail. 

[shadowclaw]

Thanks for the replies! @fuzzylogician and @TakeruK, I think I will I consult the editor on his opinion - seems like a good person to ask anyway since editors are in charge of what's being printed!

@ShogunT I don't think it was double-blind and I'm not sure there's an actual requirement for the reviewers to remain anonymous (for this journal anyway). When I initially began studying biology, I assumed that blind review always meant double-blind, but when I actually started submitting manuscripts, I quickly figured out that this was not the case when reviewers made reference to my gender (not in bad way, just using the she pronoun to refer to me). In fact, I've only noticed one or two ecology journals that specifically advertise double-blind reviews. Also, the reviews passed through the hands of two editors in this case - a geography-specific editor and the editor-in-chief. I'm sure they both noticed at least that the reviewer identified himself as being one of the authors on the paper I cited.

Also, TakeruK, I actually requested this reviewer for my manuscript. Not just because our studies are similar, but because he's probably the biggest expert in my area of interest.

[ShogunT]

@shadowclaw: apologize for my inaccurate assumption about the double-blind process, which is the norm in my sub-field. In this case, I agree with others that contacting the editor is the good way to move forward.