Single-blind vs double-blind review

Single-blind is the traditional default in many fields. Its critics argue that knowing an author is famous, or from an elite institution, can sway a reviewer toward leniency, while an unknown name from a lesser-known country may face harsher scrutiny. Double-blind review masks author identities to blunt these effects, and several studies find it modestly improves acceptance rates for less prominent groups.

Anonymity is hard to guarantee. Self-citation patterns, preprints, niche methods, and datasets often reveal who wrote a paper, so double-blinding is partial in practice. It also does nothing about reviewer-side conflicts, since the editor still knows everyone.

When acting as a reviewer under either model, the discipline is the same. Judge the work on its methods and evidence, not the letterhead. If you can infer the authors in a double-blind submission, that inference should not change your assessment.