Before you send the paper out for review, you need to “blind” the paper; that is, ensure that the paper does not identify the authors or their institution in the text or the references. Check not just the text but also the headers and footers. In Word, also inspect the document to remove document properties and other personalized meta-data (Figure 5). You do this through the File/Info/Check for Issues menu or File/Check for Issues/Inspect Document menu. Unless the headers have author information in them, you can leave the headers and footers.

Figure 5. Remove document properties and meta-data