Grey Literature consists of documents that are not formally published through typical scholarly channels. It is produced by government agencies, universities, corporations, research centers, associations and societies, and professional organizations.Grey Literature is not scholarly information, however, it is an important source of information often published by practitioners and researchers in the field. It can contain statistics, facts, and other information not found in other published resources. Types of Grey Literature include:
- Conference proceedings
- Dissertations
- Government documents
- Pre-prints
- Reports
- Standards
- White papers
- Working papers
When is grey lit used in reviews?
Best practices for scoping, systematic, and other evidence synthesis reviews suggest that grey literature should always be included. Many teams who write systematic reviews with metaanalysis have inclusion criteria that makes grey literature less useful.
If you chose not to use grey literature in a systematic review, there should be clear reasoning in the protocol. Similarly, scoping and other reviews that don't require a protocol should describe the decision not to use grey literature somewhere in the published review.
