Collecting evidence – Grey literature searching
Stephanie Jacobs
Grey literature (or gray literature) are materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels.
The breadth of materials included under the umbrella of grey literature is wide. Grey literature encompasses reports, government publications, policy papers, annual reports, fact sheets, clinical guidelines, maps, geological surveys, statistics, and many more types of information distribution. In academic contexts, conference proceedings and theses are the most common type of grey literature.
Grey literature are often released by government departments and agencies, non-government organisations, advocacy groups, and private organisations. It’s important to evaluate grey literature with the same rigour as a journal article, as bias may be present depending on the purpose and publisher of the materials. For example, patient information leaflets/fact sheets are usually created using evidence based practice and research. If the research used was funded by a drug company and the leaflet promoted the company’s drugs as treatment, that is potentially, highly biased.
Research cited in grey literature can demonstrate how the researcher’s work is having an impact on a wider audience, and can be viewed through tools like Analysis and Policy Observatory (APO) and Altmetric Explorer (through subscription) for policy citations.
As there is no traditional way of measuring the impact of grey literature itself, it must be evaluated by the reader.
Getting Started
As a primer on grey literature, see the Advanced Information Research Skills (AIRS) grey literature tip sheet. This tip sheet gives an overview of what grey literature is, why it’s useful, and it’s limitations.
The video below outlines a few key skills to help your search effectively for grey literature.
Learn more
Grey literature outputs can look vastly different depending on the area of study. These subject specific guides list further databases and suggestions to find grey literature in your area.
QUT Law Library Grey Literature Guide
For more general guides from other institutions, see:
The following are platforms and databases that assist in the searching of grey literature. Depending on the topic, any one or combination of the platforms and databases below may be appropriate to search. They include:
- QUT ePrints – institutional repositories such as QUT ePrints host a variety of theses.
- Google – using filetype:pdf after keywords, as grey literature is commonly published in PDF format.
- Google Scholar – can search indexed international repositories for theses.
- Trove – hosts a range of Australian grey literature, including theses.
- Analysis & Policy Observatory – useful for Australian policy research.
- Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations – searches international theses over a range of subject areas.
- WorldCat – effective for locating international grey literature.
- Dimensions – A research platform that allows you to search for publications, citations, grants, clinical trials, patents and policy documents. QUT currently has access to the free version.
Consider: Which of the above sources would be most applicable to your faculty? Are there any other sources not in the above list that you know to be useful for grey literature in your discipline?
Challenge me
Traditional metrics do not usually include citations in grey literature, which means that researchers will need to use Altmetrics to measure their research impact in these areas.
Altmetric Explorer is a tool that collates mentions of research outside of academic publications, including grey literature. However, it doesn’t cover all resources that could be classified as grey literature, such as theses uploaded to online repositories. This means that manually searching grey literature within the research’s subject area can sometimes be the only way a researcher can measure the impact of their work.
The University of Melbourne has included multiple case studies in ‘Research impact for Education: a self-help guide’, outlining examples of searching grey literature repositories to measure the impact of reports. Of note is the usage of different databases between the two examples, which demonstrates how searching grey literature should be targeted to the most appropriate databases or repositories for the best results.
Presently, there are a number of papers discussing the efficacy of currently available Altmetric tools and their usefulness with pulling metrics from grey literature sources. Adie (2014) recognised that there is great opportunity for Altmetrics to assist researchers discover the impact of their research in grey literature sources, but a major drawback was just how these tools could accurately pull these sources. Schöpfel & Prost (2017) agree, discussing the potential for Altmetrics tools in particular could add further value to grey literature by increasing impact searchability.
Attribution
Content in this chapter has been developed by QUT Library.
Definition sourced from Wikipedia, ‘Grey literature’.
All information correct at the time of publishing 21 April, 2021.
Image Credits
Royalty-free images used on this page were sourced from unsplash.com.
Icons created by priyanka, and Wichai Wi from Noun Project.
Images in flashcard exercise from Unsplash. Images by (in order of appearance) Headway, Jonas Jacobsson, Scott Graham, Sergey Zolkin, & Bernd Klutsch.