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I'm a PhD student and recently submitted my first paper to a journal. I listed this paper as under review in my CV with its title, but not with the journal name. (My CV is available on my personal website and the lab's website)

In my field, it seems pretty common that grad students/post docs who are in the early stage of their career list their under review papers to advertise their productivity, and people don't seem to worry about its potential impact on review processes.

Is it possible that reviewers happen to learn that I'm the author of the paper either because they google the title or because they come across it on my CV?

Maybe I'm overthinking, I don't think reivewers would proactively try to find out info about authors. But I'd like to hear what other people think and whether I should be more cautious about listing my under review papers in my CV. Thanks!

May
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  • Does your field have double blind review? 2. In my field at least, people typically only list ones that are "in press" since "in preparation" or "in submission" is essentially meaningless.
    • – Azor Ahai -him- May 04 '20 at 02:03
  • I'm going to guess this is a computer science question about double blind review. Please edit to make this clear. – Anonymous Physicist May 04 '20 at 03:16
  • Is it possible that reviewers happen to learn that I'm the author of the paper either because they google the title?

    That would be a normal thing to do when checking to see if the paper is plagiarized.

     – Anonymous Physicist May 04 '20 at 03:17
  • I do not see why it would be a bad thing if reviewers find out you wrote your paper, but then I do not use double blind review. – Anonymous Physicist May 04 '20 at 03:18
  • @AzorAhai: this may be field-dependent, but why essentially meaningless? It tells me what the student is working on, with whom and implies the student would be ready to talk about the results. For master students, it tells me that they even attempt to write a paper! For people with many papers, I am usually assuming that the level of the papers are similar. – user111388 May 04 '20 at 09:28
  • A similar question was asked here, but the answers don't seem to address double-blind review much. – Anyon May 04 '20 at 12:08
  • @user111388 Well, because having something in prep or submission doesn't mean it's any good - that's what a journal checks. I have known ms that never ended up getting accepted; knowing they wouldn't be, would they retrospectively be considered worthwhile to put on your CV? I'm sure people within my field would disagree with me, but that was the advice I received. – Azor Ahai -him- May 04 '20 at 15:33
  • @AzorAhai: it doesn't have to be "any good" to be useful -- I would consider it informative useful information (like a teaching statement or research statement where the contents are also not evaluated by some journal). Anyway, I was just interested in your opinion, I don't want to start a fight. – user111388 May 04 '20 at 15:35
  • @AzorAhai Thanks for your comments! 1. Yes, it's double-blinded in my field. 2. I see your point that papers not yet accepted are meaningless. But the thing is people (usually who are not yet established) in my field tend to list their under review papers. I'm worried that I would be considered as an unproductive researcher if I don't list them. But at the same time, my advisor has several academic enemies and we review each others' papers quite often. I'm concerned that they will find out that it's my paper when they are reviewers of my paper. – May May 04 '20 at 16:30