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Literature Reviews

How to understand and write a literature review for an academic paper or research article.

Gray Literature

The general term for information sources disseminated outside of the scholarly publishing process by non-publishers.

Sources considered gray — data collected by a federal agency, or a technical report by a professional association, for example — are certainly edited in some way but do not go through peer review, so while they are published documents, they are not considered scholarly articles.

 

Types of gray literature

  • Hard to find studies, reports, or dissertations
  • Governmental or private sector research
  • Clinical trials - ongoing or unpublished
  • Conference proceedings can sometimes be considered gray literature, depending on their editorial process

Further Reading

Gray Literature: Sources

 

National

GENERAL
BIOMEDICAL

International