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Grey literature

Find literature that is not available in traditional channels of publishing and distribution.

Developing a grey literature search plan

Grey literature:

  • is broad and amorphous
  • can be overwhelming to search without a clear goal

Keep in mind the type of information that you are interested in (e.g. theses, reports, conference materials etc.) and use this to help plan where you search.

  1. Start with more focused collections of information, rather than the general internet. This may include specific websites, databases, or repositories. 
  2. When you have exhausted these options then try broader web searching. This may include advanced searches of Google and/or Google Scholar.
  3. Decide how you will search each grey literature source. Our Simple approach to searching page can guide you on selecting keywords to use. Each of the sources will allow different searching techniques so you may need to adapt your searches from one to another.

An example plan

Topic: government regulation of pseudoephedrine sales

Type of information Where to search
Government and industry reports Google
Theses

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

WorldCat

Repository materials OAIster

Keywords

Searches will be conducted using different combinations of these keywords:

  • pseudoephedrine regulation
  • sudafed regulation
  • legislation pseudoephedrine sales
  • legislation sudafed sales

Systematic searches

Our Systematic reviews guide has information related to grey literature searching for researchers conducting systematic or scoping reviews.