MSD Publications follows widely accepted and well-established guidelines for the double-blind peer-review process. This method requires that both the authors' and reviewers' identities are hidden from each other, thus reducing any likelihood of bias from reviewers while it also prevents the authors from contacting the reviewers to affect the review outcome. In a double-blind review, authors and reviewers are equally responsible for preserving the integrity of the review process. Both parties are expected to behave responsibly and ethically throughout the process.
Authors submitting articles to our journals need to ensure that their identities are not disclosed to the reviewers either directly or indirectly, any information that could indicate otherwise must be stripped from the manuscript. Authors need to submit a cover letter containing the article title, author(s) details, affiliations, contact information, and acknowledgments in the separate file from the blinded manuscript. Here are some additional steps to ensure compliance with the double-blind review.