blinding not evidenced
Claiming blinding without methods support.
What it is
Blinding — keeping the researcher or rater unaware of which condition a participant is in — controls for expectancy effects. A paper that asserts 'all experiments were performed blind to condition' without describing HOW gives reviewers no way to verify the claim. Common gaps: who labelled the samples? When was the unblinding key generated? Did the analyst know which tubes were which?
Why a reviewer cares
Reviewers ask: what specifically was blinded, when, and by whom? Was a blinding check performed (can the rater guess the condition above chance)? Where automated, what was the random assignment procedure?
How to fix it
Describe the blinding procedure in concrete terms: who randomized, who handled samples, when blinding was broken, whether an audit trail exists. If blinding was impossible (e.g. obvious physical differences), say so and discuss the threat.
This is one of ~15 canonical methodology explainers Paper Review's red-team report links to. To get a full review of your manuscript, start a Paper Review — $5.