Warning to MSWord Users
I just got the MLA newsletter in the mail, and was reading a few of the articles. Apparently MS Word has become a problem in anonymous peer review. Why? Because if you submit a document via email for review, the reviewer can see who created the document. How? Well by default Word tags documents with the name of the author, or more precisely the name of the registered user of the computer on which it was written. All you have to do is select File-Properties-Summary and Word displays the information. Okay, a few points about this:
- First, if you have Word you might want to turn off this feature, you never know when the government might intercept something you wrote and arrest you for something you wrote that is in violation of the patriot act.
- Second, better yet just send your files as a .rtf.
- Third, why are journals, which are trying to promote scholarship supporting a proprietary document format, rather than using a document format open to all? Seems like a bad academic practice to me.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:56 am
Actually .rtf is a Microsoft format too. That’s why I use OpenOffice.
September 24th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Laura,
.rtf was developed by microsoft, but isn’t closed in the same sense. I can open a .rtf file and see all of the text characters. The issue with open office (which I recommend using) is that not everyone can open the file format it saves in.
September 24th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
How do you turn off this feature in Word? Wouldn’t it also be accessible in rtf if composed in Word and you haven’t turned it off?
(I’ve started to use Mellel, but still use Word occasionally)
September 24th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
John,
I would assume that the info would not be in a .rtf file, but I will investigate and let people know. I will also get some details about how to shut this off, but I need to get to a computer that has a full copy of word, which I don’t have at home. Of course the way I always do it is export as a .pdf, but Mac makes this easy, not so easy on the PC.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I know PC users can download the add-in Remove Hidden Data Tool from the Microsoft Office downloads page. According to MS, “With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden data and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files.”
I’ve used it many times and have not had any problems. For the most part, I always include document properties because I WANT people to know from whom the document came, and it helps in my organizing. However, I certainly agree there are many reasons, such as blind reviews for conference paper and journal submissions, etc. for which you definitely don’t want any user information available.