Systems Design Engineering: Grey Literature Sources

This page offers insight into grey literature: what it is and how to find it.

Consider these key guides and resources that identify sources of grey literature:

Don't forget to check the following for grey literature!

• Reference lists/bibliographies of research articles
• Contact experts or authors (some data can be left out of studies!)
• Newspapers and Magazines Guide

Grey literature is a valuable source of information, and includes resources typically inaccessible via traditional or commercial publishing.

• Grey literature includes government reports, NGO publications, dissertations, conference proceedings, technical reports, publications of health organizations, blogs, wikis, pamphlets, presentation slides, correspondance with subject experts and more!
• Read more about what grey literature is and isn't

Always document your search methodology when searching grey literature. Details to keep track of include:

• Resources searched
• Actual search strategies
• Number of results
• Justification for any filters applied to search (publication date, domain, etc.)
• Justification for how you reviewed results (did you review all, or some?)

Well documenting your search methodology means that you will be able to explain how your results were retrieved. Doing this also allows you to accurately integrate your search approach into a larger piece of writing such as an essay, a poster, your thesis, etc. 

Often, Google can be the best tool to search for documents and reports published on the web.  When recording your search methods, it is important to document the search terms used and the date the searches were performed.

Google Advanced will combine or exclude search terms, limit results by region, file type, i.e. .pdf (helpful when limiting to reports), domain (i.e. .gc.ca)

Google Scholar will only retrieve documents from academic and professional sources. Note: You will have to browse through a lot of journal articles to find the grey literature reports. *There is no limit for "grey literature only."*

Try country-specific Googles like Google UK, or Google Australia.  You can often retrieve useful documents or reports through Google UK or Google Australia that would most likely be missed by only searching Google Canada.

DuckDuckGo is another search engine like Google.  DuckDuckGo does not collect user information, which means your results will not be filtered based on your geographic location.

These sources are useful for finding conference proceedings:

Many universities have institutional repositories, which are online databases of publications by their members. Repositories can include publications by faculty and student dissertations and theses.