Peer Review and Blind Review
The source defines peer review in a single clause in one section, and describes the blind review process in full in another, written by a different hand. Read together they give you a mechanism and a test.
Two accounts of the same mechanism, from two places in the source
The supplied material treats peer review twice, in different sections and to different purposes. The first appearance is a test you apply to an article, sitting as the first of eight credibility questions. The second is a description of how the process works, reproduced from an external research methods text and offered as advice about where to concentrate a literature search.
The relationship between the two is worth stating plainly. Peer review is the general category: work assessed by others in the field before publication. Blind review is a particular way of running it, distinguished by one operational detail — the paper reaches the reviewers with the author's identity removed. Every blind review is a peer review; not every peer review is blind.
The blind review process, as the source describes it
- Author submits
- Editor solicits reviewers
- Identity removed
- Critical reviews returned
- Editor decides
Five moves, each doing a distinct job
The author submits a potential article to a journal editor
The submission goes to an editor, not to reviewers. That matters for what follows: the editor is the party who selects reviewers and the party who makes the decision, and the reviewers advise rather than decide.
The editor solicits several reviewers who agree to review
Two conditions are stated. There is more than one reviewer — the source says several — and each has agreed to give a critical review. The reviewers are described as agreeing to the task, which makes review a solicited voluntary act rather than an automatic step.
The paper is sent with no identification of the author
This is the single feature that makes the review blind. The source is precise about the direction of the removal: the paper goes to the reviewers without the author's identity. It says nothing about whether the reviewers are identified to the author.
The reviewers give a critical review
The word is critical, not approving. The source does not specify what the reviewers examine — there is no list of criteria anywhere in the supplied material — so the content of a review is left entirely open.
The editor accepts, rejects, or asks for revise and resubmit
The decision is the editor's, based on the reviewers' recommendations. Three outcomes are named and no others. Note the asymmetry: the reviewers recommend and the editor decides, so a favourable review is not by itself a publication.
THE THREE OUTCOMES, AND WHAT EACH MEANS FOR YOU AS A READER
| Outcome | What happens to the article | What you can see of it later |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | The article is published in that journal | This is the only outcome you normally encounter. Everything you read in a journal reached you through it |
| Reject | The article is not published in that journal | Invisible to you entirely. A literature search sees what survived, never what was turned away |
| Revise and resubmit | The author is asked to revise the paper and submit it again | Also invisible in the published article, unless the journal chooses to print submission and acceptance dates. A published paper may have passed first time or on a third attempt, and it will read the same either way |
The three outcomes are the source's. The observations in column three are synthesis, drawn from what the described process implies.
That third column is the honest reading of the mechanism. Blind review is a filter on entry, applied before you ever see the work, and the record of its operation is not attached to the article you eventually read.
What removing the author's name is designed to remove
The source states the purpose in one clause: "so that there will be no personal bias (either for or against the author)". Both halves of that parenthesis matter, and the second is the one usually forgotten.
The bias it is aimed at
- Favour towards a well-known or senior author
- Prejudice against an unknown or early-career author
- Judgement shaped by the author's institution or country
- Judgement shaped by a personal relationship, in either direction
- Any assessment of the paper that is really an assessment of who wrote it
What the mechanism does not touch
- Whether the reviewers are competent in the specific area
- Whether the reviewers agree with each other
- What the reviewers actually examined — no criteria are stated anywhere
- Errors that survive review because nobody looked for them
- The editor's own judgement, which the source leaves unblinded
Anonymising the author addresses a bias about who. It is silent on everything about what and how well, and the source does not claim otherwise — it describes the removal and states its purpose in a single clause without extending the claim.
The credibility claim, and how strongly it is made
Articles in journals with blind review processes can be expected to have a fairly high level of credibility.
Read the qualifiers. Can be expected to — a reasonable prior, not a property of every item. Fairly high — not high, and not verified. Level of credibility — a degree on a scale, not a binary state. The sentence is carefully hedged and is worth quoting with its hedges intact.
WHAT THE SOURCE'S WORDING COMMITS TO
| The phrase | What it supports | What it does not support |
|---|---|---|
| "Have other scholars in the field recommended that it be published?" | Treating peer review as a recommendation made by people with standing in the field | Any claim that the recommendation was correct, or that the reviewers checked any particular thing |
| "no personal bias (either for or against the author)" | The stated purpose of removing the author's identity from the reviewed paper | That the process removes bias generally, or that identity-based bias is the only bias present |
| "can be expected to have a fairly high level of credibility" | Using blind-reviewed journals as your starting point and weighting them most heavily | Treating any individual blind-reviewed article as verified, correct, or exempt from your own appraisal |
| "Put the greatest emphasis on…" | A weighting instruction across your whole set of sources | An instruction to exclude everything else. The same material counts reports, theses and records as literature |
What the description leaves out
That last gap has a practical consequence. Since the source gives no method for ranking outlets in your field, the workable substitute is the field itself: the journals that the credible work you have already found publishes in, and cites. That is synthesis rather than instruction, and it is one more reason to do the review early — see why review the literature early.
Weighting it in your search
The instruction is graded rather than absolute, and it is worth holding the grading. The source tells you to concentrate on the scientific literature, to identify the most credible research journals in your area and start with those, and to put the greatest emphasis on those using a blind review system. Elsewhere the same material states that it is best to use refereed journals — see the five-step literature review development process.
A WEIGHTING, NOT A GATE — HOW THE SOURCE'S INSTRUCTIONS STACK
| Kind of source | How the source treats it | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Research journals using blind review | "Put the greatest emphasis" on these; credibility can be expected to be fairly high | The backbone of the review. Start here, and let these works point you to the rest of the field |
| Other peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings | Covered by credibility question 1, which names conference proceedings alongside journals | Fully usable. Check the outlet's own statement about its review process rather than assuming |
| Books from academic publishers | Credibility question 7 asks who the publisher is and names a university press as the academic case | Usable, and often where definitions and theoretical apparatus live. The source's own reading list is largely books |
| Government reports, theses, records, newspapers | Explicitly named as literature; not peer reviewed in the journal sense | Usable with the status stated in your text. Do not present them as though they carried journal review |
The rows follow the source's own statements about each kind of source. The recommendations in column three are synthesis.
Telling whether an article was reviewed
The source gives one route and only one: journals and conference proceedings will usually state whether their articles are peer reviewed. That statement lives with the outlet, not with the article, which is why this is the one credibility question you cannot answer from the PDF in front of you.
Establishing review status for an item you intend to cite
- Find the outlet's own statement about its review process, in its information for authors or its about page
- Confirm the item is a research article rather than an editorial, book review or comment carried by the same outlet
- Where you used a database filter for publication type, treat that as a shortcut and verify it against the outlet's statement
- Record the review status with the reference at the moment you capture it, not when you write it up
- Where an item is not peer reviewed and you are using it anyway, note why it earns a place
Peer review is also only the first of the eight credibility questions the source supplies, and credibility itself is the second filter, not the first. An impeccably reviewed article that does not bear on your question does not belong in your review — see assessing the academic value of sources for how the two filters interact, and database search technique for restricting a result set by publication type.
What to carry forward
- Peer review is the category; blind review is the version where the paper reaches reviewers without the author's identity.
- The editor selects the reviewers and makes the decision. Reviewers recommend; three outcomes exist — accept, reject, revise and resubmit.
- You only ever see the accepted outcome. Rejections and revision histories are invisible in the published article.
- The stated purpose of anonymity is narrow: no personal bias for or against the author. It is silent on competence, criteria and error.
- The credibility claim is hedged — "can be expected to have a fairly high level of credibility". Quote it with its hedges.
- Greatest emphasis is a weighting. Reports, theses and books remain literature, used with their status stated.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between peer review and blind review?
Peer review is the general practice of having other scholars in the field assess work before publication — the source's gloss is that they have recommended it be published. Blind review is a particular way of running that assessment, in which the paper is sent to the reviewers with no identification of the author, so that there is no personal bias either for or against them. Blind review is a form of peer review, not an alternative to it.
Does blind review guarantee an article is correct?
No, and the source does not claim it does. Its wording is that articles in journals with blind review processes can be expected to have a fairly high level of credibility. That is a reason to start with such journals and to weight them heavily; it is not a warranty on any individual finding, and you still have to read the work and judge its methods and evidence yourself.
Who decides whether an article is published?
The editor. The source describes reviewers as giving a critical review and making recommendations, and the editor as the party who then accepts the article, rejects it, or recommends that the author revise and resubmit. A positive review is advice to the editor rather than a decision.
What does revise and resubmit mean?
It is the third outcome the editor can choose: rather than accepting or rejecting, the editor asks the author to revise the paper and submit it again. The source names it and says nothing further about it. As a reader you generally cannot tell whether a published article was accepted first time or after revision, since the published version reads the same either way.
Am I allowed to cite anything that is not peer reviewed?
Yes. The instruction is to put the greatest emphasis on blind-reviewed research journals and to rely predominantly on academic sources — a weighting, not a prohibition. The same material defines literature to include government reports, historical records, theses and newspaper articles. Use them where they are the right evidence, and state what they are rather than letting them sit alongside reviewed work undifferentiated.
How do I find the most credible journals in my area?
The source tells you to determine them and gives no method for doing so, which is a real gap in the material. The practical substitute is to work from the field: note where the credible work you have already found was published, and which outlets it cites repeatedly. Confirm the review status of any outlet you settle on from its own published statement.
References and source attribution
- Trochim, W. M. K. 2006, Research Methods Knowledge Base — the excerpt reproduced in the supplied source, which contains the blind review description and the instruction to concentrate on credible research journals.
- The supplied teaching source: master's-level teaching material on reviewing the literature, supplied as study notes and accompanying slides. The peer review credibility question is quoted from that material.
- A university learning guide, 2011 — the work the supplied source credits with the eight credibility questions, the first of which concerns peer review. The institution is not named in this library.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford (listed among the source's references).
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London (listed among the source's references).
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Explain the difference between peer review and blind review as the source describes them.
- How much weight should I put on peer review when selecting sources for my literature review?
- What does blind review actually control for, and what does it leave untouched?
- How do I check whether the journal an article came from uses peer review?
- I want to cite a government report that is not peer reviewed. How should I handle that in my review?