A question about replies and follow-ups

Suppose you have a published paper that you want to follow-up on. How do you do that without jeopardizing the "blindness" of the peer review process? You can't simply write, "In my (2012), I argue that p, and in this paper I will expand on my argument for p," right? That's a dead giveaway.

Similarly, suppose you want to reply to a paper that criticizes a paper you have published. How do you do that without jeopardizing the "blindness" of the peer review process? Again, you can't simply write, "John Doe's critique of my (2012) is...," right? That's a dead giveaway.

So what's an author to do?

Comments

[Marcus Arvan]

Whenever I've had to do it, I just used the third-person (viz. "In Arvan (2012)..."). Editors will let you change it to first-person after acceptance. It's also important to try not to imply your identity in other more suble ways when you use the third-person although in some cases it's pretty tough.

[Kyle Whyte]

I do exactly that. I just treat myself as "some" author and move on. What is sometimes weird is that if you presented the paper at a conference before, it might have the personal language in it. So it becomes awkward to switch it for peer review. But I think it just has to be done.

[Dan Dennis]

Thanks, this is helpful. A year ago I published the first part of a two part defence against the problem of evil. I have now finished the second part and want to send it off. I am just trying to decide what to do about revealing or disguising myself. I could write the paper in the third person and pretend the first paper was not by me. But I cannot help wondering whether I shouldn't just suggest blind review be waived. Then the paper could make clear that it is part of a single whole, when taken together with the other paper...

[Moti Mizrahi]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Dan, I share your worry that a follow-up paper that is forced into the role of a "stand-alone" paper (by breaking all ties to the earlier paper and recasting it in the third-person) will lose some of its appeal and argumentative force. Any thoughts about that?

[Dan Dennis]

I agree it is a real problem. Not sure what to do about it. I am considering writing to the editor and just suggesting skipping the blind review - making the referee aware who I am - which isn't ideal but it is perhaps the only alternative to pretending to be someone else.