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Incorporating your previous work as assumptions in a paper without violating anonymity?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Let's say I'm working on topic X. I have a novel interpretation of Y, which is related to X, and I published a paper defending this interpretation of Y. In my new paper on X, I want to assume this interpretation of Y. How to do this without violating anonymity? Here are my thoughts:

– I can just cite myself as a third party, explain the view briefly, and then say that I will assume this view. But I think this approach would not realistically protect anonymity since I'm a very early career person, and no one is going to assume my views except for me.
– I can briefly explain the interpretation without citing myself. But this raises worries like: "this interpretation needs much more work to get off the ground" or the claims like "this view is already defended in an earlier paper that the author isn't aware of." So honestly, I don't know what to do.

How do you incorporate your published work into a new paper without violating the rules of anonymized peer review?

These are good questions–in fact it's an issue that I've run into many times myself, both as an early-career scholar and now as a mid-career scholar. While I've heard from many it's best to cite oneself in the third-person to preserve anonymity, this doesn't help all that much in a paper where one is primarily building on other work one has published previously. 

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I think you should worry about what you do assume in a paper if, as you note, "no one is going to assume my views except for me". Assumptions in philosophical papers are to be widely accepted (hence, widely held). Alternatively you can just say, I will assume "…". But if the assumption is not granted by the referee, then the paper is unlikely to be accepted.

I don't think this is exactly right. Assumptions don't have to be widely held to be legitimate to invoke in a philosophical argument; what they need to be is to be defended. But still, the practical problem here is real: if you're the only one who has defended the relevant assumption(s), then, particularly if you're early-career, any referee is likely to suspect that you're the author of the previous paper defending them.

So, what to do? Do any readers have any helpful tips? 

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7 responses to “Incorporating your previous work as assumptions in a paper without violating anonymity?”

  1. a classic

    I was in the same situation as the OP, and I encountered a different problem. I used the first option (cite your own work as a third party). But the paper was rejected because, according to one reviewer, it was relying too much on other people’s work, and it was not original enough. Moreover, I was also told that I was mischaracterizing my own view, but that’s a classic, I guess

    Reply
  2. Richard Yetter Chappell

    I think the first option (cite yourself in the third person) is completely fine. It doesn’t formally violate anonymity, and I don’t think there’s any reason to speculate about what referees may or may not infer about my identity from how I argue.
    Compare: I might have such quirky interests that literally nobody other than me would write on topic X. But it doesn’t violate anonymity for me to submit a (formally anonymized) paper on X.
    There’s a separate question whether referees will be willing to accept the paper if it relies on assumptions that they disagree with. I think they ought to, if the assumptions are tolerably reasonable (and defended elsewhere), and — most importantly — the new paper makes significant and interesting progress on the basis of those assumptions. But many referees fail to understand their job, so who knows. Good luck.

    Reply
  3. Bill Vanderburgh

    How about this? “In earlier work, I argued that Y [reference removed for blind review]. This paper builds off Y by arguing X.”

    Reply
  4. OP

    OP here. a classic: that’s so annoying, sorry to hear. Thanks to Richard Yetter Chappell and Bill Vanderburgh for their very helpful suggestions. Bill’s suggestion also removes the worries regarding relying so much on other people’s work. Both options risk outing myself, but I guess there is no way around that.

    Reply
  5. Tyler Hildebrand

    The method Bill mentions has downsides. It makes your identity obvious to many qualified referees. And if it doesn’t, they won’t be able to consult the cited work, which they might need to do to offer a recommendation.
    Third-person anonymizing is the way to go.

    Reply
  6. maybeharsh

    I am sorry to sound harsh, but I think third-person citation is the proper way to go. We will just have to accept the criticism (if it occurs) that the paper relies too much on other people (or other work, including one’s own), just like any other criticisms. It shouldn’t matter who wrote that paper you are citing. I am an early career who struggle with similar issues, but I never adopted Bill’s strategy. I just try, and sometimes unsuccessfully, to make the paper independently interesting and have enough original content.

    Reply
  7. maybeharsh

    actually, I would like to add that some journals do not allow Bill’s strategy. (I can’t remember which ones)
    what happened (twice) was that I cited my under-review work in this way “I have argued in [anonymized] that…” and the draft was returned because of this.

    Reply

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