I come across this ever so often when doing a review, and there are even journal guidelines giving bad advice on how to blind a manuscript for double-blind peer review.
A good guide can be found here at Oxford Univeristiy Press.
What gets me every time is violations of this:
Do not employ (Author 2016) and similar devices.
While it may look like a good way to anonymize, it actually encourages guessing who the author may be more than anything I know. Often it provides good clues, especially if we can read the titles in the reference list. The funny thing is that as a reviewer, typically I do not want to know who you are (at least not until I have completed the review).
The guidelines cited above are pretty clear:
- do cite yourself if it is relevant
- use appendices/supplements to describe methodology
- do not use (Author 2019)
- do not cite unpublished work
Didier Ruedin 