Blind Review Guidelines

Ensuring a Double-Blind Peer Review

To ensure the integrity of the double-blind peer review for the Engineering and Sustainability Journal (ESJ), every effort must be made to prevent the identities of authors and reviewers from being known to each other.
Please follow these steps when preparing your manuscript and supplementary files (including data sets and technical drawings):

  1. Content Anonymization


Remove Names: Ensure no author names, affiliations, or contact details appear anywhere in the manuscript. This includes the title page, headers, and footers.
Redact Acknowledgments: Remove any mention of specific funding grants or colleagues that could identify your laboratory or institution. These can be added back after the review process is complete.
Neutralize Self-References: Instead of writing "As we demonstrated in our previous study (Lourenço, 2024)," use the third person: "As previously demonstrated (Lourenço, 2024)."

 

2. Removing Metadata (Document Properties)


Even if your name is not in the text, your software (Microsoft Word, Excel, or Adobe Acrobat) often saves your name in the "File Properties." You must remove this:
For Microsoft Word (Windows):
1.    Go to File > Info.
2.    Click Check for Issues and select Inspect Document.
3.    In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the checkboxes for the types of hidden content you want to inspect.
4.    Click Inspect.
5.    Click Remove All next to "Document Properties and Personal Information."
6.    Save the document.
For Microsoft Word (macOS):
1.    Go to Tools > Protect Document.
2.    Select Remove personal information from this file on save.
3.    Save the document.

For PDF Files:
1.    Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat.
2.    Go to File > Properties.
3.    Remove any name listed in the Author field under the Description tab.

 

3. Supplementary Data & CAD Drawings


Given the technical nature of ESJ, authors must ensure that supplementary files—such as AutoCAD files, Power BI dashboards, or Excel spreadsheets—do not contain metadata in the "Author" or "Last Saved By" fields.