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Gray Literature: What is Gray Literature?

Online sources of gray literature, which includes data, reports, lab notes, ephemera with informational value, unpublished manuscripts, pre-prints, and other information sources that are valuable to scholars but not published in the traditional sense.

What is Gray Literature

Gray literature is information generated through government agencies, academia, and other research institutions. It not published in a traditional way, so while it can be valuable for research, it can also be hard to find.

Types of gray literature include:

  • data sets
  • reports
  • conference proceedings
  • newsletters
  • white papers
  • patents
  • registered trials
  • working papers
  • policy briefs
  • dissertations and theses