Blindingly Transparent – Anonymity in an Era of Openness: A Reply to Cardini

We welcome and appreciate the comment from Cardini 1 on our “ABC of academic writing” 2. Cardini rightly points out that some of our advice could lead to revealing one’s identity inadvertently, jeopardising the double-blind peer review process. Importantly, there is a wealth of evidence that the effectiveness of double-blind review can prevent biases resulting from traditional single-blind review (for a randomised trial from our field, see 3). Therefore, Cardini argues that preserving equity in the peer review system and writing the text in a way that maintains anonymity is imperative. We concur with this point.