Peer review models are important to factor in when it comes to editing a journal or deciding which journal to submit a manuscript to. We mention models because there are several types of review that a journal could choose to use, usually with the following names: 

1. Editorial review (not anonymous)
2. Single anonymous
3. Double anonymous 
4. Triple anonymous
5. Open (not anonymous)

Before describing these models, we should note that most scholars will be familiar with at least one of these models, although usually by another name: double-blind review. The “blind” terminology for anywhere we’ve used “anonymous” in the above list has been the mainstay language to refer to peer review models for our professional lifetimes (i.e., many decades) while the process of anonymous review itself dates back hundreds of years. 

In the last decade or so, however, some journal editors have foregone the language of “blind” in favor of “anonymous” review, citing the ableist language of “blind.” Kairos began internally referring to double-anonymous review at least as far back as 2015, if not earlier; our usage is hard to track since Kairos doesn’t actually use an anonymous process for review, so our references to it are usually in relation to how other journals employ this peer-review model. We were glad to see the standards for peer review formally change in 2023, when the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced the publication of the “Standard Terminology for Peer Review.” In this new American National Standard, NISO outlines four types of identity transparency in the peer-review process—(1) all identities visible, (2) single anonymized, (3) double anonymized, and (4) triple anonymized—which closely coincides with our list of five models above. 

We also recognize that most (humanities) journal editors do not consider themselves professional editors insofar as they are not plugged into professional (academic or non-academic) publishing networks where publishing news, such as the changing of peer-review terminology standards, would be found. And those that are affiliated with such networks and organizations, such as members of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (which to declare bias, Cheryl directs), don’t necessarily consider it part of their journal work to stay updated on international guidelines. That’s a big reason why we wanted to write this book—to change the knowledge sharing around journal work, especially for digital journals. 

So what do each of these models refer to, and why would an editor or author want to choose one over the other? Let’s explore four of them in this post; we will save the Open review model for a separate post, because it’s a bit more expansive to describe.  

Editorial Review: Not Anonymous

Editorial review is sometimes not considered to be a model of peer review because it doesn’t traditionally involve peers (see our post “What is Peer Review & Who Are Peer Reviewers?”). In this model, the authors and editors know each other, although in some cases the author has anonymized their submission, but the editor knows who the author is and writes back directly to them. During editorial review, the editor takes responsibility for reviewing any submissions that come to a journal. This model is most often seen in creative writing journals, and it used to be used quite frequently for all sections of a scholarly journal as well—as recently as the late 1960s when the journal Nature finally switched to peer review. Editorial review is not really the same thing as open peer review, but we’ll save that argument for our open peer-review post, which we'll link to here once published. 

Within peer-reviewed journals, editorial review is often the first point of review in the peer-review process, where editors determine whether a submission fits the mission and vision of the journal. This is a big-picture review of a manuscript, although some editors do read submissions quite thoroughly at this point before deciding whether to send a submission to external reviewers. This initial stage of review is sometimes called the “triage” stage, although we don’t prefer that medical/injury rhetoric at Kairos. 

Editorial review is also the stage at which “desk rejects” happen: an editor will deem a submission unsuitable for the journal for a variety of reasons and send a rejection to the author(s). For instance, Kairos desk rejects submissions that are written as print-like articles for print-based journals because those texts don’t follow our mission and vision for publishing scholarly multimedia. (Kairos does not assign many desk rejects because authors tend to work more closely with editors prior to submission to ensure that the webtexts submitted match our mission and vision to begin with.) 

In addition, editorial review is still used for some sections of some journals, such as with reviews, interviews, and other non-Article-type genres. In these cases, the lead editor or section editors will review (and potentially work with authors to revise) a submission for publication, and external reviewers are not brought in to do this work. Because of this developmental process with authors, we at Kairos do consider editorial review to be a form of peer review, as the editors function as peers who work with the authors to revise. 

The mentoring relationship in editorial review is a big benefit to using this model. Another benefit is when journals publish creative works that feel more subjective than research-based works. This is why editors of belles-lettristic journals tend to use editorial review as their primary model of review—they employ editorial prerogative to shape the vision and scope of their journals. However, solely relying on editorial review is also how editors can craft artistic ruts and scholarly roadblocks for their journals by relying exclusively on their personal decision-making to make determinations of who and what gets published. In scholarly journals, just as with creative journals, an editor’s ego might impede scholars from publishing works the editor disagrees with or simply doesn’t like. This is why most scholarly journals use a form of external, and often anonymous, peer review. 

Anonymous Models of Peer Review

Single-Anonymous Review

Single-anonymous review models use peer reviewers to help an editor choose which pieces should be published in a journal. In single-anonymous reviews, authors' names are included in the submissions, but reviewers' names are not made known to the authors. The editors know the identities of each person. 

A benefit to using a single-anonymous review model is that authors don’t have to anonymize their submissions. There are a number of reasons why a journal might choose this model. Single-anonymized submissions might be helpful if journal editors and disciplines are striving to be more inclusive of a broader range of author identities, where names might help indicate gender, race, and ethnicity. On the contrary, keeping the author’s identity known can harm the potential article’s acceptance, which a lot of historical data on peer review has shown, especially in reference to names that (seem to) indicate an author’s gender as female or whose racial or ethnic identities are other than white. 

As one solution to the issue of ensuring inclusion in scholarly publishing where reviewers may discount research written by non-white, non-male scholars, an editor may choose to collect optional, anonymous demographic data upon submission. This step is becoming more feasible the more journal publishing moves to online editorial management systems and more people are paying attention to inclusivity in scholarly publishing. 

Double-Anonymous Review

To most scholars, the most familiar model of peer review is double-anonymous review. This model of peer review requires that authors scrub all identifying information from their manuscripts prior to submission, and reviewers write anonymous reviews that are sent back to the authors, thereby ensuring a double anonymous process. Editors still know the names of both groups. 

This model of peer-review is the most familiar in scholarly journal publishing because it’s the one that has been used the most widely (with few exceptions) in many disciplines, from humanities to hard sciences. The double-anonymous process is usually the one most editors who are starting new journals adopt because it is so frequently used, and editors and reviewers are already familiar with the process. Editors whose journals are published by large publishers or who have adopted publishing platforms with built-in editorial workflows, the double-anonymous review process is often baked into these platforms, often with little to no way around this assumed-exemplary process. 

The challenge of double-anonymous peer review is true for any of the anonymized processes where the name of the reviewer(s) is kept secret from the author (or editor, as is the case with triple-anonymized review; see next): The possibility for reviewers being, well, (racist) jerks is high. Without a name attached, reviewers often feel they can say whatevertheheck they want with no repercussions. The gatekeeping and exclusionary tactics that anonymous reviews often contain include “feedback” such as 

• Asking the author to write a totally different paper than the one they submitted
• Committing multiple microaggressions against the author, particularly if the submission contains content a reviewer doesn’t see themselves in conversation with or if there happen to be grammatical or usage errors
• Being obliquely offended that the author didn’t cite the reviewer’s own work and demanding they do so during revisions 
• Reprimanding the author for not citing every major and/or dead white dude in the disciplinary canon 
• Writing from a place of anger (about the piece’s argument, organization, design, whatever) instead of from a place of helpfulness
• Calling the author names

All of these “recommendations” have happened to us as authors, and this doesn’t even include all the racist, perfectionist nonsense some anonymous reviewers (think they can) get away with, and that editors let slide. Not knowing the author makes it seem as if reviewers are absolved from believing authors are human beings in disciplinary connection with each other.¹ This lack of decorum in anonymized review letters is well-recognized and how academia ended up with the Reviewer 2 meme. 

As if white supremacy weren’t enough of a problem in using double-anonymous peer review, it’s also not a suitable model for any kind of work that includes multimedia or performance.

Triple Anonymous Review

So, are you the kind of editor who needs to not only double-down but triple-down? Then triple-anonymous review might be for you! Lol. This model of review means that no one knows who anyone is in the process—the article is scrubbed of author information, the reviewers are anonymous, and the editor doesn’t know who the author or reviewers are when handling submissions prior to peer review. This model is used in some scientific disciplines, with new scientific articles calling for its use on the regular, as a way to help prevent bias. We just learned that PMLA, the primary journal for the Modern Language Association, has used this model since 1980, although the editor, Brent Hayes Edwards, mistakenly refers to it as “double-blind” while describing a triple-anonymous process. (We have more to say about this column outlining peer review at PMLA in another post.) Honestly, this model seems totally bananas to us, and there are better ways to prevent bias, as we will discuss in another post on open peer review.

References

Ball, Cheryl E., & Eyman, Douglas. (2015). Editorial workflows for multimedia-rich scholarship. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 18(4). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0018.406 [Editorially reviewed]

Ball, Cheryl E.; Inefuku, Harrison; Meetz, Johanna; Neds-Fox, Joshua; Raju, Reggie; Rosa, Célia Regina de Oliveira; Rowell, Chelcie; Shuttleworth, Kate; Warren, John; and Wipperman, Sarah. (2024). Library Publishing Curriculum Introduction Module: Introduction Narrative. Library Publishing Curriculum, 2(1). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/libpubcurriculum/vol2/iss1/1

Edwards, Brent Hayes. (2025). Revisiting the History of Anonymous Peer Review (from Both Sides, Now). PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 140(1), 9–19. doi:10.1632/S0030812925000124

National Information Standards Organization (NISO). (2023, July). Standard terminology for peer review, ANSI/NISO Z39.106-2023. Retrieved from https://www.niso.org/publications/z39106-2023-peerreview

Footnote

1. For succinct histories on the racist nature of scholarly publishing and peer review, see the Library Publishing Coalition’s Library Publishing Curriculum “Introduction,” which includes sections on the “White Supremacist History of Scholarly Publishing” and “Decentering Power Structures Through Authorship, Peer Review, and Publishing.”