publish research paper anonymously

Publishing a research paper anonymously: A case study

Authorship in Research

Kakoli Majumder

Case: An author had submitted a paper to a journal and the paper was under peer review for some time. At this stage, some of his colleagues advised him to withdraw the paper as it was on a sensitive topic and could be damaging to his career. The author sent a withdrawal request to the editor, but the editor replied that the peer review for the paper was almost complete and withdrawal at this stage would mean wasting the time and resources of the journal as well as peer reviewers. This would go against publication best practices. The author then approached Editage Insights asking whether it was possible to publish the paper anonymously.

Action: We asked the author why he felt the topic was sensitive and how much it could damage his career. The author replied that the paper highlighted negative side effects of a drug manufactured by the pharmaceutical company he worked for. Although the side effects were not potentially life threatening, these results would definitely affect the sales of the product. The company might not like that and might take action against him. In an extreme situation, he might even lose his job. On the other hand, the author felt morally responsible to communicate these findings to current and potential users of the drug.

We explained to the author that most publishers and editors do not allow anonymous publication. However, in a few exceptional cases, anonymous publication may be allowed.  We asked the author to explain the situation clearly to the editor of the journal, mentioning that publication of the paper could lead to loss of employment, and request the editor to either allow him to withdraw the paper or publish it anonymously.

The editor understood the problem and said that he would discuss the possibility of anonymous publication with the publisher.  He also assured the author that i n case the publisher did not agree to anonymous publication, a confirmation of withdrawal of the paper would be provided.

Summary: Publishing a research paper anonymously is generally not acceptable as it goes against the norm of transparency in authorship and academic publishing. An author is expected to be responsible and accountable for any work that he or she has published.

Most editors and publishers would not allow anonymous publication. However, in a few extreme and exceptional situations, anonymous publication may be allowed. These include situations where revealing the identity of the author could pose a threat to his or her life, lead to loss of employment, or where the content of the paper contains extremely personal details of the author, such as medical problems or social issues faced by the author.

According to the Council of Science Editors (CSE)  http://www.councilscienceeditors...  

In extremely rare cases, when the author can make a credible claim that attaching his or her name to the document could cause serious hardship (e.g., threat to personal safety or loss of employment), a journal editor may decide to publish anonymous content.

If an author has any such genuine reason to publish anonymously, they should write to the editor explaining the issue and the threat it may pose to the author. The editor will use his/her discretion to decide whether anonymity is permissible keeping the gravity of the situation in mind.  

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Published on: Jan 22, 2016

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Anonymity in Scientific Publishing

We are entering a new age of transparency and openness in science. New scientific practices that would have been unthinkable to most of us even a decade ago are now becoming commonplace. One of my recently completed projects was fully preregistered on the Open Science Framework website, complete with predictions, reasons for possible exclusion of data, the analytic techniques to be used, and so forth. Well, yes, I am fourth author on the project and one of my recent PhD students, Adam Putnam, did all the work, but I will still bask in being part of the new wave in science.

Even though I have not been at the forefront of writing about all the new practices in science, I followed along from my perch as chair of the APS Publications Committee. (I stepped from that position a year ago, once Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science ( AMPPS ) had been established.) I was edified by the various articles and e-mails I received, and then by the collection of blog posts and tweets forwarded by others, about the pros and cons of the new practices. I think the concept of “open science” and its transparent practices have a strong toehold in our field, at least, and are gaining momentum in all of science. The Center for Open Science (and its Open Science Framework) is one of many exciting developments. Transparent practices seem here to stay.

With one glaring exception: Transparency in publication practices. Some journals, such as the Journal of Educational Psychology , have initiated a “masked review policy, which means that the identities of both authors and reviewers are masked. Authors should make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities” (from the website). Other journals do the same. This procedure can present a problem for those people with a sustained record of research on the topic of the manuscript. Do you leave out self-citations from the references? I have seen that happen with a citation of “Author, 2011,” but of course that can itself be a clue to identity. Also, this practice of masking the authors conflicts with the idea from the open science movement of posting one’s paper for comments (free reviews) on a website before submission to a journal. Other journals permit authors to submit anonymously but do not require it, and other models are possible. I am not sure if the practice of anonymous submission is increasing, and I cannot seem to find data on the issue.

Should Reviews Be Signed? What About Action Letters?

Once a paper arrives in the editor’s office, it is either triaged (see, especially, Psychological Science in our field) or sent out to review. Most reviewers choose to be anonymous. I don’t, and I know other cognitive psychologists who sign their reviews, too, but I have been told that the practice is rare in other disciplines.

Why did I change? I edited a journal in the 1980s and became used to signing my action letters, so I saw no reason to change that practice for reviewing. I thought, and still think, that signing encourages me to write more thoughtful and respectful reviews. Of course, the practice leaves me open to receiving critical responses from recipients of my reviews. A year ago, I reviewed a paper on an old issue in the psychology of memory that did not cite relevant research, so I took a few paragraphs to provide a tutorial review that I thought might be helpful. One of the authors wrote to me and the action editor to say that he found the tone of review offensive; in particular, he found my review “condescending.” I wrote back an apology and said I thought I was being “educational.” But I went back to my review and, sure enough, the reviewer had a point regarding the tone of the review. In my defense, I was annoyed at reviewing a paper on an issue (not even one that I studied) by authors who showed little appreciation of the literature. The hazard of signing reviews is having your reviews reviewed, but that’s fine with me. Transparency. Why snipe at others from behind a rock?

I recently was asked to serve as an editor for two papers for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ). Authors are identified to the editor when they submit papers. The editor-in-chief (or maybe a senior staff person) assigns it to a more specialized associate editor. If the paper is not triaged at these early stages (50% are), the associate editor asks someone more specialized (me, in this case) to serve as action editor for the paper. In the most recent case, I chose several reviewers, and rather quickly the reviews came back. PNAS does not permit identification of reviewers to authors, but they are put on a tight deadline — 10 days — for submission of reviews. I had read the paper, so when the reviews came in, I read them a couple of times, read the paper again, and wrote an action letter.

I asked to see how the eventual package looked when it was returned to the submitting author. I found what I had been told to expect: The entire set of information came from PNAS , but neither the reviewers nor I were identified. From the authors’ perspective, some shadowy presence emerging from PNAS had made pronouncements about the publishability of their paper. In my experience, this takes anonymity to a new level, but perhaps this practice is common in some fields of science. If the paper is eventually accepted and appears in PNAS , I will be identified in a footnote as the action editor who handled it.

I wondered why there has been so little discussion of anonymity in submission and reviewing in the new transparency movement, so I wrote to several friends who have been more deeply involved in the open science movement, and I asked them. Had I just missed the relevant articles? I was told that their entire community is having heated debates about the merits and demerits of transparency in submission and reviewing, but more on Twitter, blog posts, and the like that I don’t read. Let me consider some of the issues, even if briefly.

Anonymous Submissions

Concerning submissions, the argument is that anonymous submission (assuming it works) aids researchers who are starting out, who are not at the most well-known universities, who may be from another country, and so on. Making submissions anonymous may give such investigators a shot at a fairer process than they might otherwise receive. I think this is a reasonable argument, but there are counterarguments. For one, many reviewers really bend over backward to help young researchers or ones who are not native English speakers, especially if they see a reasonably good paper that needs some reshaping. If the reviewer does not know who submitted the paper, she or he might just write a short negative review without trying to be particularly helpful. Also, sometimes knowing the author might make a difference. Suppose a paper arrives in the editor’s inbox and its message is that several experiments have provided devastating rebuttal of Snerdley’s important theory of something-or-other that he has been pushing for years. It might be worth knowing if Snerdley, rather than Snerdley’s long-time critic, is the author.

Yet the bias can go in the other direction. A famous researcher may get a mediocre paper accepted simply based on reputation, as if the logic is, “Oh, it’s a paper by X, so it must be a good paper.” This may be less likely to occur with anonymous review — except that, of course, the editor knows who the author is and is the one making the decision about publishability. I have heard of cases in which, when a paper was triaged, the editor gets a note that essentially says, “Don’t you know who I am?” And the answer is yes, and I just desk-rejected your paper.

Another issue, raised by a commentator on this column, is that anonymous submission may encourage authors to submit essentially rough drafts of their paper, thinking, essentially, that the reviewers will not know who they are, so why go through those extra two revisions to comb out all those small problems? The reviewers will do that. That is not fair to reviewers or the editor.

At any rate, I can see the issue of anonymous submission either way. Pros and cons exist, and as usual it depends on how one weights them. Researchers can vote with their feet (as it were) by choosing to submit or not submit to journals requiring them to make their papers anonymous.

Signing Reviews

I used to encourage people to sign reviews, but after numerous discussions, I’ve backed off. Good counterarguments exist. Signing represents a danger to young scholars who might be advising rejection of a paper of someone senior who will later be asked to write a reference letter for the reviewer’s tenure case. Or that senior person may later be editor and get even when the young scholar submits a paper. (Yes, we would like to think these things do not happen, but we know better.) That problem exists at the senior level, too. I do think signing reviews makes the reviewer read more carefully, think harder, and be more civil. Yes, when reviewers sign, perhaps they become too polite. One problem noted by editors is that a reviewer will write a lukewarm-to-warm review, but then in the checklist of recommendations and the private note to the editor, will say the paper should definitely be rejected. This makes the editor look like a jerk for rejecting the paper over slightly positive reviews. I try never to do that in writing reviews, and I usually do not write private comments to the editor; my review says what the editor needs to know.  At any rate, I still always sign my reviews unless the journal prevents it, which some do. They take my name off, which is odd. One of my friends who also signs told me that he refuses to review any longer for a journal if they follow this practice.

In discussing the issue of signing reviews over the years, I have found some people who always sign, and some who at some point went from not signing to signing. However, I also discovered other people who used to sign reviews but now do not sign them, and they give good reasons. I have come to the conclusion that it is simply an individual choice. I wrote an earlier column about reviewing in which I provide 12 tips. Perhaps the most critical one is to have the goal of reviewing a paper using the same tone as if you were going to sign it and be identified. Also, never, ever choose to sign your positive reviews and not your negative ones!

The Editor’s Role

What about the editor? Is there any reason for an editor not to sign his or her name, other than not wanting to get pushback? Not that I know of. Psychological Science has begun the practice of putting the name of the action editor accepting the paper with the publication, which I think is a good practice. AMPPS will do the same. Other journals should follow suit, in my view. Some journals publish reviewers’ names, too, but that can be a fraught practice. If someone writes a negative review and the paper is accepted because of other positive reviews, the person’s name appears with the paper as if he or she endorsed it, too.

One interesting model comes from the BMJ , formerly t he British Medical Journal , which has the most open publication practices I have found. Briefly, each article not triaged is considered by peer reviewers and several editors. Reviews are signed and are made public (with the authors’ responses to reviews) when the paper is published. All people are identified in the process (editors and reviewers are identified). This process takes transparency to a new level, one at the opposite end of the spectrum from PNAS .

The editor has a critical role in the whole process. The obvious part is that the editor makes the decision about publishability. The less obvious role is that the editor selects the reviewers. When I was associate editor and then editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition in the 1980s, I felt as if I could strongly bias the eventual decision on a paper just by selection of reviewers. Editors get to know that some reviewers dislike most every submission, and others have a positivity bias. Selection of fair reviewers is a critical step, and editors tell me that it is getting harder to get good reviewers (perhaps due to the proliferation of journals).

A Thought Experiment Realized

Years ago, around 1990, Endel Tulving and I were chatting in my office at Rice University, discussing the issue of anonymity in science, the desire to make scientific submission and review anonymous “for protection.” Endel proposed the thought experiment of having two types of journals. In the alternate universe of journals, authors would identify themselves to reviewers, reviewers would identify themselves to authors, and editors would of course identify themselves. These would be the set of journals for open, transparent editorial processes (although we may not have used those terms in 1990). He wondered if scientific progress might not be greater if we had this kind of transparency in science. The thought experiment was to set up journals of both types and see which one researchers would elect to use and which one would win in terms of people signing up for one or the other approach, for submissions, and for the discovery of new knowledge. But we agreed that time that we will never know the outcome.

Now I think we might. Journals in our field and across science are experimenting with various degrees of transparency in the editorial process. While consulting people in writing this column, I learned about various journals in numerous disciplines. On the one end, there is the BMJ model, though not yet employed by any psychology journals that I know of. ( Collabra, the journal published by the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, has some of these features.) On the other end, there is the PNAS model. And we see (and will continue to see) journals experimenting with other kinds of practices, such as requiring that all submissions be vetted by being posted on a website. Some journals (as now) forbid it, whereas others might encourage it (even require it). In due course, over the decades, such experimentation may lead to new models of journal publishing. Which journals will receive the best submissions? What forms of publication will survive? I would like to bet on more open practices, but I am often wrong in my bets.

Reviewers should make a sharp distinction between papers with poor theoretical arguments or foundation, and papers with a good theoretical foundation, but one they do not endorse because they views things themselves differently. In the latter case they had better advise publication but write a letter to the editor or a second paper with arguments against the view unfolded in the just-published paper. The author will be happy with the attention and the reviewer can add a additional publication to his list of contributions to science.

After taking one of Roddy’s courses on academia in graduate school (based on his 2004 book, The compleat academic: A career guide), I started signing my reviews. As a graduate student and now an assistant professor, I feel that biased decisions as a result of transparency are worth the risk (to me individually, at least), and ideally tempered by the responsibilities of the editor. While a thought experiment in the 1990’s, I also feel that we as psychologists must play a critical role in research on biases related to publication. It is imperative that we conduct experimental research on the impact of gendered names, institutional affiliations, international status, etc., and set a model for transparent publication methods aligned with research from our own field.

One possible solution to the problem of junior identified reviewers receiving kickback from annoyed more-senior scientists is to have reviewing done by a team, rather than an individual. If a paper exists as a preprint, which by its nature is non-confidential, then the review can be done by a whole research group – great training exercise for the team, and it ensures a really good, thoughtful review. It’s harder to be angry with or dismissive of a whole group who had a collective criticism.

As you know, I am the author you refer to in your article above who complained about your “condescending” review (in fact, I would go so far as to say it was potentially inflammatory in places, e.g, “[your theory] was dead on arrival when it was proposed”!). HOWEVER, I really appreciated that you signed your review, because your criticisms were much easier to swallow (I would have felt much worse if the sniper had stayed behind the rock!). Indeed, because I know you, I did not find your comments too inflammatory; I found them engaging and would love to explain why space limitations meant we couldn’t cite the papers you mentioned (citing more recent ones instead). Anyway, the point is that, as in real-life, arguments are much more fruitful when “face-to-face” than when disguised by anonymity (cf. internet trolling). I don’t think transparency does preclude frank exchanges, but I think it does encourage respect and reason.

Returning to your article: I accept that full transparency does carry risks, e.g., for junior researchers writing negative reviews. I liked Kate’s idea of diffusing the risk via group reviews; another idea (proposed by Niko Kriegeskorte I think) is to give scientists a unique ID code. They don’t have to reveal this code to others in the “real world”, but their code does have to be provided together with any review they write (and reviews are always published in this model). All reviews (and papers authored) by the same ID can then be linked, and readers can establish their own ratings of “reliability/trustworthiness” of an ID, in the same way that we currently use prior knowledge about the work of individual scientists (see https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2012.00094/full for further discussion). Though not fully transparent, this idea does offer some level of accountability for how scientists behave. And even if the real-world identity of IDs can be guessed, I think the small element of uncertainty will still reduce bias. (A problem for this model is how to use this information when real-world decisions are needed – e.g, whether to offer that junior researcher a job – perhaps this can be done by providing stats on an ID without revealing the ID itself?).

I don’t know whether scientists will ever be able to avoid taking criticism of their work personally, and to avoid retaliatory responses, but I agree with you that we are entering an interesting era of open science where scientists can “vote with their feet” in selecting the publication model they prefer (fully open or fully anonymous). Though quite not there yet, I know where I’m heading.

Anything that reduces what I perceive as the irrational, biased and unfair comments that I often see in reviews of my own papers is something I welcome, and think is good for the discipline. Does signing my own name make me consider more carefully what I say when writing a review? Yes.

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About the Authors

Henry L. Roediger, III, is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and he is The Academic Observer for APS. This column benefitted from comments by Dave Balota, Rich Lucas, Kathleen McDermott, Hal Pashler, Adam Putnam, Dan Simons, Bobbie Spellman, Endel Tulving, Simine Vazire, and John Wixted.

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Privacy Overview

Anonymizing Your Manuscript Submission

What is anonymization and why is it important.

In an effort to reduce biases in academic publishing, many peer-reviewed scholarly journals follow double-blind or double-anonymized peer review processes. In double-blind peer review, authors don't know the identity of the reviewers for their paper, and the reviewers do not know the identity of authors. Having authors strip identifying information from their manuscript submissions can help reduce unconscious bias in the peer-review process and, ultimately, help make publishing more equitable and objective.

How do I know if a journal requires an anonymous version of my manuscript?

Each journal that uses Scholastica for peer review operates according to its own best practices, including setting its own standards around manuscript blinding/anonymization. For this reason, it's imperative that authors check a journal's manuscript formatting guidelines before submitting to ensure they are following the exact requirements of that journal. When authors follow journal submission guidelines, it helps editorial teams send papers through peer review more efficiently without unnecessary delays. If you have questions about a journal's submission guidelines, please email that journal before submitting using the contact information found on the Home or About page of its Scholastica submission site.

How do I anonymize my manuscript?

Before you submit to a journal that conducts blinded/anonymized peer review, you'll need to make an anonymized copy of your manuscript. Anonymizing your manuscript means removing your name, the names of any co-authors, your institutions, and any other factors that could indicate who wrote the manuscript.

Steps for anonymizing your manuscript before submission:

• Remove authorship information (name, institution, titles) from the anonymized version of your manuscript file. If you’ve been asked to include a supplementary biographical file or C.V., you may leave the biographical details in those supplementary files and just remove the identifying information from the manuscript itself.
• Don’t mention grants or acknowledgements — those can be added to the manuscript prior to publication. If you have removed acknowledgements, thanks, or grants, replace them with something brief to indicate their removal, like “Acknowledgements removed”.
• Avoid, or try to minimize, self-citation. If citing your own work is unavoidable, make sure you make your references using the third person. For example: “Flores and Nagy (2014) have demonstrated”, rather than “as we previously demonstrated…(Flores & Nagy, 2014)”. 

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Checklist for anonymising your manuscript for double-anonymous peer review

A Chinese language version of this checklist is also available.

We have created a Word template for double-anonymous submissions . This is not compulsory, but may help you ensure your work is fully anonymised.

Do not include author names, affiliations or pictures of the authors anywhere in the manuscript, justification letter, or in any Supplementary Information files.

Do not include any names in any file names and ensure document properties are also anonymised.

Do not include any author names or institution information in the Acknowledgements section of your manuscript. Author names and Funding information should be removed and can be re-added later in the peer review process.

If your submission requires an ethical statement, please do not include this on the manuscript (as it may reveal aspects of your identity). Instead please provide the ethical statement in the section provided on the submission system.

When referring to your own work within the paper or reference list, avoid using terminology that might reveal your identity. Avoid phrases such as 'we have previously shown (reference)'. Instead use 'as previously shown (reference)'. Please anonymise any references to your own unpublished thesis work.'.

At revision do not sign your author response, rebuttals, or appeals with author names.

On journals currently operating double-anonymous peer review you may include author identifying information on your manuscript, but please be aware that we do not edit manuscripts before sending them out for review, therefore you include author information at your own risk and accept that this will be visible to reviewers.

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Manuscript preparation for double-anonymized journals, preparing your manuscript for submission to a double-anonymized journal.

For journals that use double-anonymized peer review, authors are required to submit:

• A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymized. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
• A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymized information. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.

Note: Cover letters  are not  sent to reviewers.

Anonymizing your manuscript

Where present, the following identifiable information should be treated as follows:

• Remove author names, emails and affiliations
• Remove the Acknowledgements
• The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: [details omitted for double-anonymized peer review]
• Anonymize the trial registration number and date
• The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by [details omitted for double-anonymized peer review]
• The citation should not be anonymized
• If necessary, it should referred to in the third person , e.g. write "Jones and Xi (2020) have shown", not "we have previously shown (Jones & Xi, 2020)".​

If the journal you are submitting to mandates research data sharing and requires links to the data to be shared at submission, the data should be deposited in a repository that preserves author anonymity. The data can then be viewed anonymously during the peer review process.

Figshar e  is a repository that can be used to generate a ‘private sharing link’ for free which can be sent via email, and which you can add to your manuscript. The recipient can then access that data without having a Figshare account, and this link anonymizes the data for reviewers. These links expire after one year and should not be cited in publications.

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Author Responses to Reviewer comments can be entered directly in and/or attached to the submission form. When attaching responses, authors should ensure that file metadata and any comments are anonymized. 

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September 16, 2020

Anonymous Peer Review: Truth or Trolling?

When reviewers of journal articles are hidden behind a curtain, they can get away with unethical behavior

By Susana Carvalho

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In recent years, I have accepted growing responsibilities as a mentor of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers in my new research group. I have been entrusted as the VP for ethics, diversity, equity and inclusion of an international scientific society, charged to be someone to support changes that can lead to leveling opportunities in academia.

In science, our careers are defined by the findings that we publish based on the research we do in the lab or in the field. Being successful at both publishing and obtaining funds for research means being on a lifelong path of scrutiny, seeking to convince our peers of the excellence and originality of our research. Each piece of work is generally assessed by at least three reviewers. Since I have published 40 articles and obtained 10 grants, I must have passed the scrutiny of about 150 reviewers.

Because reviewing is a reciprocal process, meant to be a safeguarding space for valid scientific input, anonymous reviewing is the standard default option. Anonymity should mean protection for the reviewer from retaliation and discrimination. Otherwise, early-career scientists reviewing a grant submitted by a large senior team may feel intimidated and voicing critical assessments from nonpermanent positions may be daunting.

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But all of us have experienced, perhaps more often than not, the distorting effects of anonymity when it results in prejudiced reviews. In some cases, these can have devastating effects on early careers and hit hard at fragile self-esteem. As with trolling in social media, anonymity in peer review is sometimes used to say those things that would never be said if reviewers had to reveal their identity.

Experiencing rejection is the norm in academia: even when our research is sound, it may not be good enough to make the top 10 percent cutoff of a journal, or our project may be exciting, but funds are limited, so that we lose in competition to more stellar science. Rejection is difficult to digest, but we move on after each blow, abiding by the rules of the game we have accepted to play. But, what to do when the game is sabotaged by players who seem to have created their own rules?

At the core of this discussion is what may be called the “Reviewer#2 phenomenon.” Reviewer#2 is someone who rejects any proposal or manuscript no matter who or what it may be, because you are trying to publish within their field of research or did not cite their work enough. We all have dealt with Reviewer#2, in our roles as associate editors of journals or awards committees. Would those Reviewer#2s survive if they had to sign off their reviews? Perhaps so, but I predict their existence would decline sharply.

As an early-career female, I offer the following example, as it came after seven years of overcoming challenges to continue in science: After giving birth a month before Ph.D. graduation, moving continents three times in 2.5 years, and then starting a research lab immediately thereafter, I found myself mostly focusing on helping students and postdocs to progress. I finally found the courage to devise a novel project (during a full-on teaching term!), and I was looking forward to getting back to what excites me in science. This project could and—according to the other three reviewers—would have marked an important milestone in my career.

Meet my Reviewer#2: They didn’t tick boxes about conflicts of interest, but assessing research that overlaps with their own topics always poses a difficult challenge. Two reviewers said that the proposal is sound and fundable, while the fourth reviewer stated that my field really needs this project to be done. So far, so good. Reviewer#2 instead resorted to a version of assessment that can be used only under anonymity; it would not stand scrutiny otherwise.

Reviewer#2 works in my field but seems not to have read about my subject species since the 1970s. Reviewer#2 is an expert in human evolution but claims that my statement about modern humans being obligate bipeds (animals whose anatomy forces them to mostly walk upright rather than on all fours) is incorrect (?!).

Reviewer#2 produces other mind-boggling ways to eviscerate the proposal—for example, by stating that I am wrong to say that bipedalism is a defining feature of the hominin clade. By now I am seriously worried, as someone teaching human evolution in the university, I seem to have some of the most basic facts totally wrong! I recheck my proposal: That sentence was a quote from Darwin. The proposal was required to be short, but Reviewer#2 wants a longer literature review and more citations (of their work?). They make a few more comments tangential to the core of the project but provide no comments on my proposed analyses or hypotheses and…reject. Sigh.

After reading this review, my first thought was “I will not spend time writing another application anytime soon.” And I know many students and colleagues who have pondered and concluded just that. But I want us to revise and resubmit after such treatment, and I call for reformative action. We need peer-reviewing processes that give accurate and constructive assessments and that appreciate the immense effort it takes to develop new ideas that yield new science.

Established academics, less prone to pressures, should be encouraged to reveal their identities, while anonymity for young scientists ought to remain an option to ensure power balance. More outlets that make public the entire review process alongside the published article, including communications with editors, combined reviewers’ comments and rebuttal letters would maximize transparency. Signing off reviews, either of manuscripts or grants, could help leveling-up the quality of the peer-review process and contribute to ending the unethical trolling that truncates or damages careers.

Dr. Anonymous is still there: a revisit of legal scholarly publishing

• Published: 19 December 2023
• Volume 129 , pages 681–692, ( 2024 )

Cite this article

• Hui Li 1 &
• Xingmei Zhang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1336-5765 2 , 3  

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Authorship is at the core of the reward system of academic research. However, over 1.4 million anonymous publications over the past hundred years uncovered in a pioneer study by Shamsi et al. (Scientometrics 127(10):5989–6009, 2022) may threaten the various authorship-based research evaluation and scholarly communication systems. In this brief communication, we continue Shamsi et al.’ exploration by focusing only on anonymous articles and reviews (so-called citable items as defined by Clarivate) which are highly valued in research evaluation and scholarly communication, to decipher the characteristics of anonymous citable items. Our data show that although the absolute number and relative proportion of anonymous citable items in Web of Science Core Collection kept decreasing in recent decades and remained at low levels in recent years, anonymous citable items in some fields, such as Law, were still non-negligible. Anonymous publishing of academic works, an old tradition from hundreds of years ago, can still be found in the field of Law in recent years, especially in the famous student-edited journal Harvard Law Review. We are not requesting journals such as Harvard Law Review to change their ancient traditions in the name of transparency and accountability, however, the unusual and persistent phenomenon of anonymous publishing of citable items and its impact on authorship-based research evaluation and scholarly communication deserves our attention more.

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https://clarivate.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2023/08/JCR-Reference-Guide-2023-August-update-1.pdf .

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According to the study of Liu ( 2021 ), both final publication year and online publication year exist for early access contents in Web of Science.

This finding was a bit different to the finding in Shamsi et al. ( 2022 ) which found that the number of anonymous articles was slightly ahead of the number of anonymous editorial materials. The delay of some records by WoSCC may be a reason.

https://harvardlawreview.org/ .

The only exception was one anonymous Statistics which was labeled as “article” in WoSCC.

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https://harvardlawreview.org/category/recent-things/ .

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https://harvardlawreview.org/about/ .

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Another special phenomenon in the field of law is the lack of peer review for many famous law review journals in the USA (Tietz & Price,  2020 ).

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Acknowledgements

This research is financially supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (22CFX065).

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Xingmei Zhang

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Li, H., Zhang, X. Dr. Anonymous is still there: a revisit of legal scholarly publishing. Scientometrics 129 , 681–692 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04912-1

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Academic Freedom and the Right to Remain Anonymous Online

We are the founders of PubPeer.com , an online forum for scientific discussion of research scholarship. We and many of the users of our website are anonymous. That anonymity is important for free speech, for academic freedom, and for scientific inquiry. But it’s being threatened, which is why we’re going to court to defend the First Amendment right to anonymity.

Have you ever questioned the claims that scientists make? For example, last year’s discovery of the so-called “God particle,” or the back-and-forth over whether caffeine is good or bad for you? Even if you haven’t, other scientists have. Analysis and criticism of the work of others is an integral part of research. The “papers” that scientists publish all undergo formal “peer review” before they are published, with the aim of ensuring high standards.

The problem is that today’s peer review is a broken process. Too often, errors slip through, and they can go uncorrected for years. Even if they are eventually exposed, that’s often long after other researchers or clinical trials have relied upon them.

This not only wastes taxpayers’ money (consider the fact that the National Institute of Health gave out $30 billion in research funding last year), but it rots the very foundation of scientific research, which builds on existing work. If today’s basic cancer research turns out to be mistaken, what does that mean for those enrolled in tomorrow’s clinical trial? This is not a hypothetical problem .

A Job for PubPeer’s Anonymous Users

This is where PubPeer fits in. We created PubPeer in our spare time two years ago to improve peer review by using the power of the internet to accelerate the exchange of ideas and scientific progress. Now, thanks to PubPeer, scientists can instantly comment directly on the work of their peers. The results have been dramatic. Already, PubPeer commenters have been in the thick of some of the biggest scientific stories, notably in analyzing a controversial paper about stem cells, which was eventually withdrawn by its authors.

PubPeer works because we allow anonymous comments. Without that anonymity, most scientists would fear professional retribution if they criticized their peers’—or perhaps their future employers’—work. But with that anonymity, our users have generated a steady stream of comments highlighting problems in basic scientific research on any number of topics: cancer, stem cells, diabetes, and more.

Registered users must be authors on a scientific publication. We screen unregistered comments to keep things factual, scientific, and civil. Comments must be based on publicly verifiable information, which ensures that what matters is the substance of our users’ comments, and not their identities. We don’t force our users to identify themselves, and that turns out to be the secret ingredient that allows our site to make a unique contribution to peer review.

The Threat to PubPeer (and Science)

Unfortunately, the anonymity that makes PubPeer work is under threat. A prominent cancer scientist, unhappy with the attention his research papers have received on PubPeer, is suing some of our anonymous commenters for defamation. And he is trying to use a subpoena to force PubPeer to turn over whatever identifying information we have for them.

With the American Civil Liberties Union and our longtime attorney Nick Jollymore, we are fighting this attempt to chill scientific discussion, because we believe those comments are scientifically valid opinions that raise questions of real public interest. If you want to make up your own mind, you can read the legal brief we filed challenging the subpoena, along with an expert opinion from Dr. John Krueger, a scientist who spent twenty years in the federal government investigating claims of research improprieties.

We believe that scientific questions should be resolved through scientific discussion, not through court proceedings. Imagine if a lawsuit were filed every time one economist criticized the work of another economist! The threat of liability would stifle legitimate academic discourse. For that very reason, we have always encouraged researchers to respond to our commenters with logic and data, not defamation suits.

Fighting for the Right to Remain Anonymous

Fortunately, the First Amendment is on our side. It protects the right to anonymous speech. The right isn’t absolute, but it protects those who choose to remain anonymous when engaging in lawful speech. Some of our nation’s founders—James Madison and Alexander Hamilton—wrote their most influential papers behind the shield of anonymity. Why? So they wouldn’t face political persecution at the hands of the British, and so their ideas could be evaluated on their merit rather than on the identity of the speaker. The same principle is at work in our case. It’s about academic freedom.

PubPeer is maintained by research scientists with the help of a computer scientist who all share a strong belief that raising scientific standards requires robust post-publication review protected by the right to anonymity.

This op-ed was originally posted on Wired .

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How to anonymise your research for peer review

• Academic Writing , Social Media
• | March 24, 2022
• By Katherine Firth

The other day, I put out a call to my Twitter people:

Academic Twitter! How do you deal with self-citation in an article with anonymous peer review? We are major contributors in this tiny field, but we blanked so much in the framing that it basically disappeared. The article was rejected for not being clearly original/significant.

Thanks to Dr Molly Dollinger (@molliedollin) and Dr Joanna Tai (@DrJoannaT), two highly published academics, who both had the same advice: rather than removing or blanking any references to your own work, you submit a version where you write about yourselves as if you were someone else. (There was some differences of opinion about whether you should let the editor know what you had done, so consider what would work for your exact project.)

This was such a useful piece of advice for two reasons.

Firstly, it allowed us to actually make the point that work had been done in the field using this methodology but not yet addressing this significant gap with specific evidence rather than a line of blanks.

Secondly, it was much easier to talk about our contribution to the field and the limitations of our previous work when talking about ourselves in the third person. I often find that writing in the first person for early drafts helps make writing your position and voice much easier (Can I use ‘I’, section 6.2, How to Fix your Academic Writing Trouble ). But when we were using first person plural language to talk about our other research, we got all tangled up in feeling awkward about being boastful or too self-referential. When we swapped to thinking about our contribution as if we were other people, we were suddenly able to write objectively and it was super easy to explain what had already been done, where the gap was, and where the new article was a contribution to knowledge.

So, I think even when I don’t need to anonymise my work, I will still use this strategy of writing about my research as if it was done by someone else. Anything that makes writing easier, clearer and less awkward is a win in my book!

Thank you so much to everyone who joined in on that conversation! Do you have strategies for approaching this challenge? Did you try this strategy and how did it work for you? Let me know over on @ResearchInsider .

Photo by  Keisuke Higashio  on  Unsplash

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Home → Get Published → How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jordan Kruszynski

• January 4, 2024

You’re in academia.

You’re going steady.

Your research is going well and you begin to wonder: ‘ How exactly do I get a research paper published?’

If this is the question on your lips, then this step-by-step guide is the one for you. We’ll be walking you through the whole process of how to publish a research paper.

Publishing a research paper is a significant milestone for researchers and academics, as it allows you to share your findings, contribute to your field of study, and start to gain serious recognition within the wider academic community. So, want to know how to publish a research paper? By following our guide, you’ll get a firm grasp of the steps involved in this process, giving you the best chance of successfully navigating the publishing process and getting your work out there.

Understanding the Publishing Process

To begin, it’s crucial to understand that getting a research paper published is a multi-step process. From beginning to end, it could take as little as 2 months before you see your paper nestled in the pages of your chosen journal. On the other hand, it could take as long as a year .

Below, we set out the steps before going into more detail on each one. Getting a feel for these steps will help you to visualise what lies ahead, and prepare yourself for each of them in turn. It’s important to remember that you won’t actually have control over every step – in fact, some of them will be decided by people you’ll probably never meet. However, knowing which parts of the process are yours to decide will allow you to adjust your approach and attitude accordingly.

Each of the following stages will play a vital role in the eventual publication of your paper:

• Preparing Your Research Paper
• Finding the Right Journal
• Crafting a Strong Manuscript
• Navigating the Peer-Review Process
• Submitting Your Paper
• Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper

It all starts here. The quality and content of your research paper is of fundamental importance if you want to get it published. This step will be different for every researcher depending on the nature of your research, but if you haven’t yet settled on a topic, then consider the following advice:

• Choose an interesting and relevant topic that aligns with current trends in your field. If your research touches on the passions and concerns of your academic peers or wider society, it may be more likely to capture attention and get published successfully.
• Conduct a comprehensive literature review (link to lit. review article once it’s published) to identify the state of existing research and any knowledge gaps within it. Aiming to fill a clear gap in the knowledge of your field is a great way to increase the practicality of your research and improve its chances of getting published.
• Structure your paper in a clear and organised manner, including all the necessary sections such as title, abstract, introduction (link to the ‘how to write a research paper intro’ article once it’s published) , methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
• Adhere to the formatting guidelines provided by your target journal to ensure that your paper is accepted as viable for publishing. More on this in the next section…

Step 2: Finding the Right Journal

Understanding how to publish a research paper involves selecting the appropriate journal for your work. This step is critical for successful publication, and you should take several factors into account when deciding which journal to apply for:

• Conduct thorough research to identify journals that specialise in your field of study and have published similar research. Naturally, if you submit a piece of research in molecular genetics to a journal that specialises in geology, you won’t be likely to get very far.
• Consider factors such as the journal’s scope, impact factor, and target audience. Today there is a wide array of journals to choose from, including traditional and respected print journals, as well as numerous online, open-access endeavours. Some, like Nature , even straddle both worlds.
• Review the submission guidelines provided by the journal and ensure your paper meets all the formatting requirements and word limits. This step is key. Nature, for example, offers a highly informative series of pages that tells you everything you need to know in order to satisfy their formatting guidelines (plus more on the whole submission process).
• Note that these guidelines can differ dramatically from journal to journal, and details really do matter. You might submit an outstanding piece of research, but if it includes, for example, images in the wrong size or format, this could mean a lengthy delay to getting it published. If you get everything right first time, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble, as well as strengthen your publishing chances in the first place.

Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript

Crafting a strong manuscript is crucial to impress journal editors and reviewers. Look at your paper as a complete package, and ensure that all the sections tie together to deliver your findings with clarity and precision.

• Begin by creating a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content of your paper.
• Compose an informative abstract that summarises the purpose, methodology, results, and significance of your study.
• Craft an engaging introduction (link to the research paper introduction article) that draws your reader in.
• Develop a well-structured methodology section, presenting your results effectively using tables and figures.
• Write a compelling discussion and conclusion that emphasise the significance of your findings.

Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process

Once you submit your research paper to a journal, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process to ensure its quality and validity. In peer-review, experts in your field assess your research and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, ultimately determining whether your paper is eligible for publishing or not. You are likely to encounter several models of peer-review, based on which party – author, reviewer, or both – remains anonymous throughout the process.

When your paper undergoes the peer-review process, be prepared for constructive criticism and address the comments you receive from your reviewer thoughtfully, providing clear and concise responses to their concerns or suggestions. These could make all the difference when it comes to making your next submission.

The peer-review process can seem like a closed book at times. Check out our discussion of the issue with philosopher and academic Amna Whiston in The Research Beat podcast!

Step 5: Submitting Your Paper

As we’ve already pointed out, one of the key elements in how to publish a research paper is ensuring that you meticulously follow the journal’s submission guidelines. Strive to comply with all formatting requirements, including citation styles, font, margins, and reference structure.

Before the final submission, thoroughly proofread your paper for errors, including grammar, spelling, and any inconsistencies in your data or analysis. At this stage, consider seeking feedback from colleagues or mentors to further improve the quality of your paper.

Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Rejection is a common part of the publishing process, but it shouldn’t discourage you. Analyse reviewer comments objectively and focus on the constructive feedback provided. Make necessary revisions and improvements to your paper to address the concerns raised by reviewers. If needed, consider submitting your paper to a different journal that is a better fit for your research.

For more tips on how to publish your paper out there, check out this thread by Dr. Asad Naveed ( @dr_asadnaveed ) – and if you need a refresher on the basics of how to publish under the Open Access model, watch this 5-minute video from Audemic Academy !

Final Thoughts

Successfully understanding how to publish a research paper requires dedication, attention to detail, and a systematic approach. By following the advice in our guide, you can increase your chances of navigating the publishing process effectively and achieving your goal of publication.

Remember, the journey may involve revisions, peer feedback, and potential rejections, but each step is an opportunity for growth and improvement. Stay persistent, maintain a positive mindset, and continue to refine your research paper until it reaches the standards of your target journal. Your contribution to your wider discipline through published research will not only advance your career, but also add to the growing body of collective knowledge in your field. Embrace the challenges and rewards that come with the publication process, and may your research paper make a significant impact in your area of study!

Looking for inspiration for your next big paper? Head to Audemic , where you can organise and listen to all the best and latest research in your field!

Keep striving, researchers! ✨

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How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Last Updated: February 26, 2024 Fact Checked

Choosing a Journal

Writing the research paper, editing & revising your paper, submitting your paper, navigating the peer review process, research paper help.

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Cheyenne Main . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 698,440 times.

Publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal allows you to network with other scholars, get your name and work into circulation, and further refine your ideas and research. Before submitting your paper, make sure it reflects all the work you’ve done and have several people read over it and make comments. Keep reading to learn how you can choose a journal, prepare your work for publication, submit it, and revise it after you get a response back.

Things You Should Know

• Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in and choose one that best aligns with your topic and your desired audience.
• Prepare your manuscript using the journal’s requirements and ask at least 2 professors or supervisors to review your paper.
• Write a cover letter that “sells” your manuscript, says how your research adds to your field and explains why you chose the specific journal you’re submitting to.

• Ask your professors or supervisors for well-respected journals that they’ve had good experiences publishing with and that they read regularly.
• Many journals also only accept specific formats, so by choosing a journal before you start, you can write your article to their specifications and increase your chances of being accepted.
• If you’ve already written a paper you’d like to publish, consider whether your research directly relates to a hot topic or area of research in the journals you’re looking into.

• Review the journal’s peer review policies and submission process to see if you’re comfortable creating or adjusting your work according to their standards.
• Open-access journals can increase your readership because anyone can access them.

• Scientific research papers: Instead of a “thesis,” you might write a “research objective” instead. This is where you state the purpose of your research.
• “This paper explores how George Washington’s experiences as a young officer may have shaped his views during difficult circumstances as a commanding officer.”
• “This paper contends that George Washington’s experiences as a young officer on the 1750s Pennsylvania frontier directly impacted his relationship with his Continental Army troops during the harsh winter at Valley Forge.”

• Scientific research papers: Include a “materials and methods” section with the step-by-step process you followed and the materials you used. [5] X Research source
• Read other research papers in your field to see how they’re written. Their format, writing style, subject matter, and vocabulary can help guide your own paper. [6] X Research source

• If you’re writing about George Washington’s experiences as a young officer, you might emphasize how this research changes our perspective of the first president of the U.S.
• Link this section to your thesis or research objective.
• If you’re writing a paper about ADHD, you might discuss other applications for your research.

• Scientific research papers: You might include your research and/or analytical methods, your main findings or results, and the significance or implications of your research.
• Try to get as many people as you can to read over your abstract and provide feedback before you submit your paper to a journal.

• They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source

• Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.

• If you have a paper on the purification of wastewater with fungi, you might use both the words “fungi” and “mushrooms.”
• Use software like iThenticate, Turnitin, or PlagScan to check for similarities between the submitted article and published material available online. [15] X Research source

• Header: Address the editor who will be reviewing your manuscript by their name, include the date of submission, and the journal you are submitting to.
• First paragraph: Include the title of your manuscript, the type of paper it is (like review, research, or case study), and the research question you wanted to answer and why.
• Second paragraph: Explain what was done in your research, your main findings, and why they are significant to your field.
• Third paragraph: Explain why the journal’s readers would be interested in your work and why your results are important to your field.
• Conclusion: State the author(s) and any journal requirements that your work complies with (like ethical standards”).
• “We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.”
• “All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to [insert the name of the target journal].”

• Submit your article to only one journal at a time.
• When submitting online, use your university email account. This connects you with a scholarly institution, which can add credibility to your work.

• Accept: Only minor adjustments are needed, based on the provided feedback by the reviewers. A first submission will rarely be accepted without any changes needed.
• Revise and Resubmit: Changes are needed before publication can be considered, but the journal is still very interested in your work.
• Reject and Resubmit: Extensive revisions are needed. Your work may not be acceptable for this journal, but they might also accept it if significant changes are made.
• Reject: The paper isn’t and won’t be suitable for this publication, but that doesn’t mean it might not work for another journal.

• Try organizing the reviewer comments by how easy it is to address them. That way, you can break your revisions down into more manageable parts.
• If you disagree with a comment made by a reviewer, try to provide an evidence-based explanation when you resubmit your paper.

• If you’re resubmitting your paper to the same journal, include a point-by-point response paper that talks about how you addressed all of the reviewers’ comments in your revision. [22] X Research source
• If you’re not sure which journal to submit to next, you might be able to ask the journal editor which publications they recommend.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• If reviewers suspect that your submitted manuscript plagiarizes another work, they may refer to a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart to see how to move forward. [23] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• ↑ https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/choosing-a-journal/6-steps-to-choosing-the-right-journal-for-your-research-infographic
• ↑ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z
• ↑ https://libguides.unomaha.edu/c.php?g=100510&p=651627
• ↑ http://www.canberra.edu.au/library/start-your-research/research_help/publishing-research
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/conclusions
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/writing-an-abstract-for-your-research-paper/
• ↑ https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation
• ↑ https://apus.libanswers.com/writing/faq/2391
• ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/keyword/search-strategy
• ↑ https://ifis.libguides.com/journal-publishing-guide/submitting-your-paper
• ↑ https://www.springer.com/kr/authors-editors/authorandreviewertutorials/submitting-to-a-journal-and-peer-review/cover-letters/10285574
• ↑ http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep02/publish.aspx
• ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.

About This Article

To publish a research paper, ask a colleague or professor to review your paper and give you feedback. Once you've revised your work, familiarize yourself with different academic journals so that you can choose the publication that best suits your paper. Make sure to look at the "Author's Guide" so you can format your paper according to the guidelines for that publication. Then, submit your paper and don't get discouraged if it is not accepted right away. You may need to revise your paper and try again. To learn about the different responses you might get from journals, see our reviewer's explanation below. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• 29 April 2024

How reliable is this research? Tool flags papers discussed on PubPeer

• Dalmeet Singh Chawla

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

RedacTek’s tool alerts users to PubPeer discussions, and indicates when a study, or the papers that it cites, has been retracted. Credit: deepblue4you/Getty

A free online tool released earlier this month alerts researchers if a paper cites studies that are mentioned on the website PubPeer , a forum scientists often use to raise integrity concerns surrounding published papers.

Studies are usually flagged on PubPeer when readers have suspicions, for example about image manipulation , plagiarism , data fabrication or artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text . PubPeer already offers its own browser plug-in that alerts users if a study that they are reading has been posted on the site. The new tool, a plug-in released on 13 April by RedacTek , based in Oakland, California, goes further — it searches through reference lists for papers that have been flagged. The software pulls information from many sources, including PubPeer’s database; data from the digital-infrastructure organization Crossref, which assigns digital object identifiers to articles; and OpenAlex , a free index of hundreds of millions of scientific documents.

It’s important to track mentions of referenced articles on PubPeer, says Jodi Schneider, an information scientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who has tried out the RedacTek plug-in. “Not every single reference that’s in the bibliography matters, but some of them do,” she adds. “When you see a large number of problems in somebody’s bibliography, that just calls everything into question.”

The aim of the tool is to flag potential problems with studies to researchers early on, to reduce the circulation of poor-quality science, says RedacTek founder Rick Meyler, who is based in Emeryville, California. Future versions might also use AI to automatically clarify whether the PubPeer comments on a paper are positive or negative, he adds.

Third-generation retractions

As well as flagging PubPeer discussions, the plug-in alerts users if a study, or a paper that it cites, has been retracted. There are existing tools that alert academics about retracted citations ; some can do this during the writing process, so that researchers are aware of the publication status of studies when constructing bibliographies. But with the new tool, users can opt in to receive notifications about further ‘generations’ of retractions — alerts cover not only the study that they are reading, but also the papers it cites, articles cited by those references and even papers cited by the secondary references.

The software also calculates a ‘retraction association value’ for studies, a metric that measures the extent to which the paper is associated with science that has been withdrawn from the literature. As well as informing individual researchers, the plug-in could help scholarly publishers to keep tabs on their own journals, Meyler says, because it allows users to filter by publication.

In its ‘paper scorecard’, the tool also flags any papers in the three generations of referenced studies in which more than 25% of papers in the bibliography are self-citations — references by authors to their previous works.

Future versions could highlight whether papers cited retracted studies before or after the retraction was issued, notes Meyler, or whether mentions of such studies acknowledge the retraction. That would be useful, says Schneider, who co-authored a 2020 analysis that found that as little as 4% of citations to retracted studies note that the referenced paper has been retracted 1 .

Meyler says that RedacTek is currently in talks with the scholarly-services firm Cabell’s International in Beaumont, Texas, which maintains pay-to-view lists of suspected predatory journals . These publish articles without running proper quality checks for issues such as plagiarism, but still collect authors’ fees. The plan is to use these lists to improve the tool so that it can also automatically flag any cited papers that are published in such journals.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01247-6

Schneider, J., Ye, D., Hill, A. M. & Whitehorn, A. S. Scientometrics 125 , 2877–2913 (2020).

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“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC’s final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”

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Noncompetes are a widespread and often exploitative practice imposing contractual conditions that prevent workers from taking a new job or starting a new business. Noncompetes often force workers to either stay in a job they want to leave or bear other significant harms and costs, such as being forced to switch to a lower-paying field, being forced to relocate, being forced to leave the workforce altogether, or being forced to defend against expensive litigation. An estimated 30 million workers—nearly one in five Americans—are subject to a noncompete.

Under the FTC’s new rule, existing noncompetes for the vast majority of workers will no longer be enforceable after the rule’s effective date. Existing noncompetes for senior executives - who represent less than 0.75% of workers - can remain in force under the FTC’s final rule, but employers are banned from entering into or attempting to enforce any new noncompetes, even if they involve senior executives. Employers will be required to provide notice to workers other than senior executives who are bound by an existing noncompete that they will not be enforcing any noncompetes against them.

In January 2023, the FTC issued a  proposed rule which was subject to a 90-day public comment period. The FTC received more than 26,000 comments on the proposed rule, with over 25,000 comments in support of the FTC’s proposed ban on noncompetes. The comments informed the FTC’s final rulemaking process, with the FTC carefully reviewing each comment and making changes to the proposed rule in response to the public’s feedback.

In the final rule, the Commission has determined that it is an unfair method of competition, and therefore a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, for employers to enter into noncompetes with workers and to enforce certain noncompetes.

The Commission found that noncompetes tend to negatively affect competitive conditions in labor markets by inhibiting efficient matching between workers and employers. The Commission also found that noncompetes tend to negatively affect competitive conditions in product and service markets, inhibiting new business formation and innovation. There is also evidence that noncompetes lead to increased market concentration and higher prices for consumers.

Alternatives to Noncompetes

The Commission found that employers have several alternatives to noncompetes that still enable firms to protect their investments without having to enforce a noncompete.

Trade secret laws and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) both provide employers with well-established means to protect proprietary and other sensitive information. Researchers estimate that over 95% of workers with a noncompete already have an NDA.

The Commission also finds that instead of using noncompetes to lock in workers, employers that wish to retain employees can compete on the merits for the worker’s labor services by improving wages and working conditions.

Changes from the NPRM

Under the final rule, existing noncompetes for senior executives can remain in force. Employers, however, are prohibited from entering into or enforcing new noncompetes with senior executives. The final rule defines senior executives as workers earning more than $151,164 annually and who are in policy-making positions.

Additionally, the Commission has eliminated a provision in the proposed rule that would have required employers to legally modify existing noncompetes by formally rescinding them. That change will help to streamline compliance.

Instead, under the final rule, employers will simply have to provide notice to workers bound to an existing noncompete that the noncompete agreement will not be enforced against them in the future. To aid employers’ compliance with this requirement, the Commission has included model language in the final rule that employers can use to communicate to workers. 

The Commission vote to approve the issuance of the final rule was 3-2 with Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson voting no. Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter , Alvaro Bedoya , Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson each issued separate statements. Chair Lina M. Khan will issue a separate statement.

The final rule will become effective 120 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Once the rule is effective, market participants can report information about a suspected violation of the rule to the Bureau of Competition by emailing  [email protected] . 

The Federal Trade Commission develops policy initiatives on issues that affect competition, consumers, and the U.S. economy. The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. Follow the  FTC on social media , read  consumer alerts  and the  business blog , and  sign up to get the latest FTC news and alerts .

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