Skip to Main Content

Grey Literature: Home

This guide contains resources and guidance to help students find grey literature

Welcome

 

Welcome to the Grey Literature guide! This guide will help you find and evaluate reliable online sources to use in your studies.

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The term grey literature refers to published and unpublished research, such as reports, government documents, and presentations which you can find simply through Google!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

Types of grey literature

 
Government Documents Newsletters Data sets
Theses and Dissertations Conference proceedings Lectures
Blogs and Social Media Videos Research proposals
Company/Industry reports Policy statements Emails
Geological and Geophysical surveys Fact sheets Patents and Standards