Is Blind Judging a Good Thing?

I’ve been entering some competitions recently and also sending out some stories to magazines. I’ve noticed that many of them have moved to using blind judging. This is where the story I’m submitting has to have no information on it identifying me as the author. For example, the Letterkenny Flash Fiction Prize, which I was shortlisted for recently, used blind judging.

As someone with a reasonably positive track-record as an author, you might think I want my reputation to proceed me, making future submissions easier. But in fact, I was in favour of blind judging, having enough confidence in my work to believe that it can stand on its own merits. In the case of the Letterkenny Flash Fiction Prize at least, that turned out to be true.

My belief in blind judging was challenged when I read some articles by people who are opposed to it, so I explored the arguments further. It turns out that there are some surprising nuances.

Let’s dive in.

Where Did Blind Judging Come From?

Note: in this article, I use ‘judge’ as shorthand for anyone in publishing who evaluates stories. The usual term in publishing is ‘commissioning editor’.

Blind judging has its roots in scientific publishing, where double-blind review has become standard. Double-blind review is where not only does the reviewer not know who the author is, but the author doesn’t know who the reviewer is either.

The fundamental idea was to reduce any biases that might prevent rigorous evaluation of scientific papers. For a simple example, if a world-famous scientist like Einstein submitted a paper, would his reputation impress people? It’s kinda inevitable, right? But even world-famous scientists make mistakes sometimes. So it would be poor science to not check their work before publishing it.

Literature is, of course, not science, and judging fiction is not as objective as assessing a scientific paper for publication is. We can argue that spelling and grammar mistakes are things a story can be objectively judged on. But what about widely admired stories that have non-standard grammatical construction, for example, The Road by Cormac Macarthy?

So it’s not exactly the same, but even so, blind judging has gained traction. Here’s why:

Arguments for Blind Judging

Focus Only on Writing Quality

The argument is without the author’s name the judge has no clue to their identity. This eliminates conscious or unconscious bias based on the author’s reputation, or assumed gender, ethnicity, or religion. Therefore, stories will instead be judged objectively and evaluated solely on their literary merits. Judged in isolation, the author’s words must speak for themselves.

For example, people often assume I’m Jewish because of my surname. When a judge sees work with my name on, then any biases they have about Jewish people will apply to my work. Perhaps that would be conscious bias but, more likely, it’d be unconscious.

In fact, “Shimmin” is not a Jewish surname. It’s a Manx-Gaelic name from the Isle-of-Man. This shows one of the problems with bias: incorrect assumptions.

Encouraging Submissions

One of the biggest problems with writing is people self-selecting out, or full of self-doubt as a writer. They might think writing stories is not what people with their background do, or they might try writing but then become discouraged.

A feeling that they have no chance because the judges are biased makes this discouragement more likely. If it appears their work will be considered fairly, that might encourage them to submit it.

Arguments Against Blind Judging

Since blind judging started being used, people have suggested several reasons they don’t think it works.

Bad People Are Talented Too

The argument here is that we shouldn’t disconnect the work from the author. This is because blind judging doesn’t only reduce ‘bad’ biases, but reduce ‘good’ biases too.

Imagine, for an extreme example, if someone who’s a notorious serial-killer also happens to be a surprisingly talented writer. From jail, they submit their work to a blind-judged competition and win. Do we really want to give a monster like that the satisfaction of winning (let alone endure the damage it’d do to the competition’s reputation)?

At a much lower level, this is the argument made against blind judging: we ought to exclude some people from consideration. This argument is similar to ‘cancel culture’, in which people’s work is shunned for reasons other than its quality.

The Author May Be Impossible to Hide

For example, in a memoir, the author’s identity is integral to the story.

Also, books written in the vernacular of a particular group suggest the author is part of that group. Which brings up another argument: the existence of a model author in the judge’s head, even with blind judging.

The Model Author

There’s a concept in literary theory called the model author or implied author. The model author is the ‘author’ the reader builds in their head as they read a story.

For example, if the author writes a story using the Scottish dialect, then the reader will probably assume the author was Scottish. If the setting is Ireland, the reader will probably assume the author was Irish. Etc. Etc.

This process in itself is subject to bias.

Similarly, writing often includes cliches, jargon, humour and references that the writer assumes the reader will understand. This could be as trivial as writing in American English rather than British English. It could be as subtle as including inside jokes that will mean nothing to people outside their group. These references may not engage a judge as much as ones written by someone from their group. So, without any conscious bias, they reject it.

If we accept that judges inevitably build a model of the author in their head, blind judging might not actually reduce bias.

Authenticity

Despite the well-known literary advice to ‘write what you know’, people often write about groups they’re not actually part of. Male authors write from the point-of-view of female characters. Female authors write from the point-of-view of male characters. Etc. Etc.

For example, Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting was written in Scots dialect and gave an image of Edinburgh as full of heroin-abusing, violent lowlife. That wasn’t particularly popular with the city’s residents, who felt it damaged the city’s reputation. Irvine Welsh is Scottish and had used heroin in his twenties. But, by the time he wrote Trainspotting, he was in his late thirties, working in the council’s housing department and had an MBA. He wasn’t really part of the group he was writing about.

Some people don’t like this kind of thing. They believe people shouldn’t write about groups they’re not part of because it won’t be authentic and might misrepresent that group. Blind judging make this issue worse, because the judge won’t be able to tell if the author is really part of the group they’re portraying.

Judges Will Have Biases Regardless

Blind judging makes it impossible to reject a submission purely because of assumptions based on the author’s name. But even with blind submissions, judges will still have biases, because they can’t possibly judge stories without assessing their content.

Assessing that content will inevitably involve the judge using their expertise. That expertise has come from what they’ve been taught, and the works they’ve read. All that experience has shaped their beliefs about what ‘good writing’ is and what makes a ‘good story’. Literature is not science or maths where there’s a definitive correct answer. What literary excellence comprises then is a matter of opinion. And opinion is not much more than bias, really—a bias in favour of what the judge regards as ‘literary excellence’. This will inevitably influence their judging.

In other words, there’s no inherent problem with blind judging, but it’s overrated, because the judges’ bias is unavoidable.

But I Want A Special Deal!

The final argument I’ve seen is just directly opposed to blind judging because it doesn’t suit the author in question. They want their gender, ethnicity, religion, or reputation considered by the judges.

In the same way, some competitions and publishers commit to publishing stories by particular groups of people. To focus on publishing work by that group, they have to know who the author is and what their background is.

Blind Judging: Complicating Factors

The Vast Majority of Stories Are Rejected

I’ve written before about the reality of getting published, and the fact that over 99% of stories submitted to literary agencies are rejected. Obviously, all but a handful of any entries to a competition are also rejected.

When your story is rejected repeatedly, it’s sickening, and it’s natural to look for an explanation. You know your story is great, so what’s happening? An obvious explanation is that the judges are biased.

But of course there are lots of other possible reasons, and the main one is they just don’t pick up very many stories. When over 99% of stories are rejected, it’s really difficult to say what made the final handful stand out to the judges. They might not even be entirely sure themselves. People say outstanding stories have je ne sais quoi for a reason.

The Judge Might Read Blind, but the Audience Won’t

The judge’s opinion about a story doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If a story is published after being chosen by blind judging, it will then have the author’s name attached. So, unless stories are published anonymously too, the wider audience will bring their biases with them. In the end, we’re back at square one and what’s the point?

In this view, there’s no inherent problem with blind judging, but there’s not much advantage. If this argument is correct, there’s no point in the judges becoming less biased faster than the rest of society. To an extent, they can lead the way because the media shapes culture, but they’re still part of the real world. Which brings me to marketability.

Marketability

Books that aren’t particularly good get published all the time.

That’s not necessarily because the judges are biased. It’s often because commercial publishing is all about money and the author is highly marketable. No one has ever claimed that the legions of celebrities’ memoirs that are published each year are good books. But they are marketable, and in commercial publishing, that’s all that counts.

Publishers want, probably even need, to consider an author’s marketability. For example, a commercial publisher can ‘t judge a book submission by me and one by Taylor Swift blindly, because of our barely comparable marketability.

For this reason alone, I can’t see publishers ever moving to a system of blind judging.

Blind Judging: My View

As a middle-aged, middle-class white man with a track record of publication, I’m apparently benefiting from a system where I get my work considered more kindly. I guess, from a self-interested point of view, I should probably be opposed to blind judging.

However, I’ve also had a lifelong hatred of injustice, something I discussed in my article on The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met. So, from that point of view, I should probably be in favour.

I feel that most of the arguments against blind judging are really saying it’s not enough on its own. My investigation has led me to agree that it doesn’t eliminate all forms of bias. It’s also probably never going to be used in commercial publishing, because of the marketing issue.

But it seems to me that blind judging does more good than harm, and so, after weighing the pros and cons, I still support it.

Blind Judging: Your Thoughts?

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