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Genetic Counselling: Finding Grey Literature

A study guide for students studying Genetic Counselling

What is grey literature?

 

The term grey literature refers to published and unpublished research, such as reports, government documents, and presentations which you can find simply through Google!

Grey literature is often the best source of up-to-date research as you don’t have to wait for it to go through the publication process. Grey literature usually is not found on the library website or in databases.

Grey literature does not go through the same peer-review process as journal articles. However, it can still be a reliable resource for you to use. Just make sure that you evaluate grey literature before using it.

Why use grey literature?

 

Grey literature is useful because:

  • It is often more up to date than books or journal articles
  • Reports, guidelines, and statistics are important to areas like Health and Science
  • It can be a good source of information on policies and programs
  • Grey literature is often a good source of raw data and data sets

Health

 

Grey Literature is a valuable resource for all health students, from government and non-government organisation (NGO) reports to guidelines, policy and statistics. They often contain an overview of an issue as it applies to a specific region, state, country or even worldwide.

Statistics

Government reports

NGO reports

You can also try searching other NGOs or Organisations that are specific to diseases and conditions you are researching, such as DiabetesAustralia.

Searching Google

Grey literature is not usually found on the library website or in databases, so Google is a good place to begin.  With Google Advanced Search you can narrow your search to only literature published on government, corporate or academic websites. 

To find reports published on Australian federal, state or local government websites

  • Enter gov.au in the Site or domain line of the search form. Use nsw.gov.au for NSW departments and local governments.  

To find reports published by Australian universities

  • Enter edu.au in the Site or domain line of the search form. 

To find reports published by a particular organisation:  

  • Enter the domain name into the Site or domain line of the search form., e.g.: pwc.com.auox.ac.uk 

You also have the option to specify file types using Advanced Search. Most company reports and government documents are published as PDFs, so select PDF under the File Type dropdown menu. 

Evaluating grey literature

 

Most grey literature is not peer-reviewed and should be evaluated for quality.

To evaluate a piece of grey literature – you can use the C.R.A.P. Test.