An evaluator sees a familiar prestigious institution beside one submission and an unfamiliar name beside another. Those cues can influence expectations before the work is read. Blind review removes some of them for the assessment stage.
In double-anonymous manuscript review, reviewers and authors do not ordinarily receive one another's identities through the process. Preparing anonymized material is practical work: names in files, acknowledgments, or references can reveal more than the cover page.
Anonymity has a scope
Imagine a writing competition considering anonymous short stories. Removing names may keep prior fame from dominating the first reading, but the stories can still reveal background, style, or familiar earlier work. Reviewers also continue to bring their own tastes and assumptions to the text.
Some assessments need context that anonymity would hide. Evaluating a collaborative project, for example, may require knowing what resources and responsibilities the applicant actually had. A process can anonymize one stage without pretending every later decision can be made without context.
Blind review changes the information available at a particular moment. It does not remove all bias or supply good criteria on its own. Its strongest claim is narrower and useful: certain identity cues need not be allowed to decide how seriously the work is considered before it has been examined.