---
title: "Scholarly peer review"
chunk: 7/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_peer_review"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:44:38.682666+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Result-blind peer review or results blind peer review, first proposed 1966: Reviewers receive an edited version of the submitted paper which omits the results and conclusion section. In a two-stage version, a second round of reviews or editorial judgment is based on the full paper version, which was first proposed in 1977.
Conclusion-blind review, proposed by Robin Hanson in 2007 extends this further asking all authors to submit a positive and a negative version, and only after the journal has accepted the article authors reveal which is the real version.
Pre-accepted articles or outcome-unbiased journals or advance publication review or registered reports or prior to results submission or early acceptance extends study pre-registration to the point that journals accepted or reject papers based on the version of the paper written before the results or conclusions have been made (an enlarged study protocol), but instead describes the theoretical justification, experimental design, and statistical analysis. Only once the proposed hypothesis and methodology have been accepted by reviewers, the authors would collect the data or analyze previously collected data. A limited variant of a pre-accepted article was The Lancet's study protocol review from 1997 to 2015 reviewed and published randomized trial protocols with a guarantee that the eventual paper would at least be sent out to peer review rather than immediately rejected. For example, Nature Human Behaviour has adopted the registered report format, as it "shift[s] the emphasis from the results of research to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them". The European Journal of Personality defines this format: "In a registered report, authors create a study proposal that includes theoretical and empirical background, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (if available). Upon submission, this proposal will then be reviewed prior to data collection, and if accepted, the paper resulting from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study outcomes." An analysis of almost 100 preregistered studies showed that registered reports adhered to an average of 92% of their preregistrations, but unreviewed preregistrations adhered only to 60%. These findings suggest that when the initial study plan is accepted for publication, there may be a reduced incentive to change preregistered plans.
The following journals used result-blind peer review or pre-accepted articles:

The European Journal of Parapsychology, under Martin Johnson (who proposed a version of Registered Reports in 1974), began accepting papers based on submitted designs and then publishing them, from 1976 to 1993, and published 25 RRs total
The International Journal of Forecasting used opt-in result-blind peer review and pre-accepted articles from before 1986 through 1996/1997.
The journal Applied Psychological Measurement offered an opt-in "advance publication review" process from 1989 to 1996, ending use after only 5 papers were submitted.
The JAMA Internal Medicine found in a 2009 survey that 86% of its reviewers would be willing to work in a result-blind peer review process, and ran a pilot experiment with a two-stage result-blind peer review, showing the unblinded step benefited positive studies more than negatives. but the journal does not currently use result-blind peer review.
The Center for Open Science encourages using "Registered Reports" (pre-accepted articles) beginning in 2013. As of October 2017, ~80 journals offer Registered Reports in general, have had special issues of Registered Reports, or limited acceptance of Registered Reports (e.g. replications only) including AIMS Neuroscience, Cortex, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Social Psychology,  & Comparative Political Studies
Comparative Political Studies published results of its pilot experiment of 19 submissions of which 3 were pre-accepted in 2016. the process worked well but submissions were weighted towards quantitative experimental designs, and reduced the amount of 'fishing' as submitters and reviewers focused on theoretical backing, substantive importance of results, with attention to the statistical power and implications of a null result, concluding that "we can clearly state that this form of review lead to papers that were of the highest quality. We would love to see a top journal adopt results-free review as a policy, at very least allowing results-free review as one among several standard submission options."

=== Extended peer review ===
Extended peer review is the process of including people and groups with experience beyond that of working academics in the processes of assuring the quality of research. If conducted systematically, this can lead to more reliable, or applicable, results than a peer review process conducted purely by academics.

== Criticism ==