Sealed Envelope Submissions Foster Research Integrity

Abstract

Because journals favor clear stories, researchers may gain by engaging in scientific misconduct, ranging from shady practices like collecting more data hoping for significance to outright data fabrication. To set researchers' incentives straight, we propose sealed envelope submissions, where editors' and referees' evaluations are based only on the interest of the research question and on the proposed empirical method. We argue that researchers who are inherently honest and who would not have cheated anyway will not be hurt by our protocol, but rather be helped by being protected.