Anonymity during peer review

PDA operates on a double-anonymous peer review policy, with both authors and reviewers remaining anonymous throughout the peer review process. See the Submitting your materials page for further guidance on how to anonymize your manuscript.

Peer review process and timelines

All submissions are peer-reviewed by 2-3 external reviewers and one of the Editors-in-Chief. We aim to complete the review process (from submission to decision) within four months. 

For reviewers: Reviewers are free to sign their reviews, if they wish. The PDA team will not otherwise reveal the identity of external reviewers to authors.

For authors: The proper anonymization of their work is ultimately the responsibility of the authors. If the PDA team sees that a document has not been properly anonymized, we will ask that this be done before proceeding further. We recommend authors:

• Do not include a cover page which presents identifying information.
• Avoid referring to themselves in the first person and do not use statements like: “In Smith 2013, I argued that …”. Rather rephrase as: “Smith (2013) argued that …”. If authors prefer a more personal style, they can change back to first person statements once your manuscript has been accepted.
• Do not replace your name with “Author” in citations as this practice does not always successfully hide an author's identity. If the article or book title is left blank in citations to prevent an author’s identification, reviewers lose the ability to identify the literature on which a claim is based, preventing them from being able to do an adequate review. Instead, please use phrasings such as those suggested in point 2.
• Do not add acknowledgements to a manuscript that is still under review.

For authors and reviewers: To ensure that any uploaded documents are completely anonymous, authors and reviewers should check them for identifying metadata.

• Word for Mac: (i) While your document is open, open the “File” dropdown menu, and select “Properties…”. In the pop-up window that opens, select the “Summary” tab. Delete any identifying information (author name, company, initials, email, etc.) associated with your file. (ii) While the document is open, open the “Tools” dropdown menu and select “Protect Document…”. In the “Privacy” section of the pop-up window that opens, tick the box next to “Remove personal information from this file on save”.
• Word for Windows: While your document is open, click the “File” tab, then click “Info”. From the options that appear, click on “Check for issues” and select “Inspect Document”. Review the results of the inspection and click “Remove All” next to any identifying information that was found.
• For PDF documents: Open your file in Adobe Acrobat. From the “File” dropdown menu, select “Properties…”. You can then delete identifying information from the pop-up window that opens.

Co-reviewing policy

PDA allows co-reviewing, meaning an invited reviewer can work with a more junior colleague to review a manuscript for the purpose of reviewer training. If you are the original reviewer invited by the journal, you must:

• Contact the journal Editors (pdajournal@lsadc.org) to ask them to approve the co-review.
• When you submit your review, add the co-reviewer’s name to the Notes to the Editor.

If you are the co-reviewer, you must assess any competing interests you may have, and either decline to be a co-reviewer, or declare any competing interests you may have to the journal by contacting the Editors directly.

Please see Cambridge's co-reviewing policy for more details.

Appeals

To appeal an editorial decision, please contact the Editors (pdajournal@lsadc.org) and specify the reason for your appeal. Your appeal will be reviewed by at least one Editor who did not review the manuscript originally. The final decision regarding your appeal will rest with the journal’s Editors.