The content of this guide was modeled after a guide originally created by McMaster University Library and has been adapted for the NWP Learning Commons in September 2020. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License.
Grey literature is produced by governments, businesses, industries, and occasionally academia. Grey literature is not controlled by commercial publishing and can be found in both print and digital formats. While not peer-reviewed or considered scholarly, grey literature can still contain valuable information to incorporate into your research papers.
Some grey literature formats include:
leaflets and factsheets
A great place to start looking for grey literature is on government websites:
Grey literature is important to many health sciences (nursing, medicine, kinesiology) and there are health-specific grey literature databases:
Another place to look is on customized search engines: