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Searching the

Grey Literature

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Searching the grey literature

  • What is grey literature?
  • Why include grey literature?
  • How and where to find grey literature
  • Searching grey literature
  • Exporting grey literature

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What is grey literature?

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  • Information outputs produced by individuals or organizations outside of the traditional publishing and distribution channels.
  • What are some examples? Please put an example that you can think of in chat.

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What is grey literature?

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  • Technical reports
  • Conference proceedings
  • Preprints
  • Patents
  • Reports

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  • Working papers
  • Theses and dissertations
  • Unpublished & ongoing studies

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What question(s) do you have about grey literature and evidence syntheses?

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What question(s) do you have about grey literature and evidence syntheses?

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What challenges have you faced in searching grey literature?

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Why include grey literature?

  • 50% of conference presentations never become articles
  • Theses and dissertations are rich in detail
  • Mentioned in both Cochrane and Campbell documentation
    • Up to 10% of citations in Cochrane & Campbell reviews
  • Importance in different disciplines varies

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Bias in research synthesis

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Reviews

Publications

Research Reports

Studies (all data collected)

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Bias in research synthesis

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Reviews

Publications

Research Reports

Studies (all data collected)

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Negative results

Positive results

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Bias in research synthesis

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Reviews

Publications

Research Reports

Studies (all data collected)

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Negative results

Positive results

Outcome reporting bias

Publication bias

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Confirmation bias

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Bias in research synthesis

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Evidence

synthesis

Publications

Research Reports

Studies (all data collected)

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Negative results

Positive results

Grey Literature

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An insightful question:

"Many of the researchers in my areas are wanting to make sure they're amplifying and representing the research of multiply marginalized and underrepresented voices in their area of research. What are strategies for either making sure this is considered in the protocol design and/or the whole process of the evidence synthesis project?"

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How to find grey literature

Requires creativity and tinkering.

Go to the source:

  • Nonprofits/NGOs
  • Government Agencies
  • Professional Organizations
  • Discipline-dependent

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  • Look at other protocols and/or evidence syntheses on your topic. Did they include details on grey lit sources searched?
  • GreyNet International has some guidance, http://www.greynet.org/
  • Grey literature search checklists (but mostly in the health sciences),

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Some resources that might help

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Where to find grey literature

There is no one place to search .

  • Institutional repositories (e.g. Digital Commons)
  • Subject repositories (e.g. AgEcon Search, arXiv)
  • Government docs (e.g. ERIC, Agricola, NTIS)
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Grey lit databases - OpenGrey discontinued :(
  • MOST IMPORTANT: Ask your subject experts!

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Do traditional databases include grey lit?

  • Yes, but…
    • Not much, not all types
    • Inconsistent
  • Some in Agricola, ERIC, Compendex, EconLit, ABI Inform
  • Google
    • Google Scholar – Little in the top results
    • “Big Google” - limit by domain (e.g. site:https://www.who.int/ gender neutrality)

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Example: Grey literature sources for agricultural topics

Africa Rice

Australia Centre for International Agricultural Research

Biodiversity International

Campbell Collaboration

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Centre for Evidence-Based Agriculture

CGIAR Research Centers and Research Programs

Cochrane Collaboration

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Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST)

CTA Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation

Embrapa

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https://osf.io/s2tw3/

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Valuable

resource

for grey lit sources, especially in social sciences

https://campbellcollaboration.org/images/Campbell_Methods_Guides_Information_Retrieval.pdf

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Searching grey literature

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  • Think basic
  • Good news! Not millions of records
  • Bad news :( Many grey literature platforms are slow, difficult to use and/or not well organized

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Grey lit search example

Topic: The economic benefits and costs of trees in urban forest stewardship

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Grey lit search example

Topic: The economic benefits and costs of trees in urban forest stewardship

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Grey lit search example

Topic: The economic benefits and costs of trees in urban forest stewardship

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Urban forest AND tree

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147 results

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Searching the entire Web site is sometimes necessary

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Hand searching of grey literature

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An example of hand searching in action

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Schneider LA, Carney PC, Eldermire ERB, Fiani N and Peralta S (2020) Levels of Evidence in Small Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Literature Over 40 Years. Front. Vet. Sci. 7:454. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00454

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An example of hand searching in action

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Schneider LA, Carney PC, Eldermire ERB, Fiani N and Peralta S (2020) Levels of Evidence in Small Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Literature Over 40 Years. Front. Vet. Sci. 7:454. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00454

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An example of hand searching in action

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Schneider LA, Carney PC, Eldermire ERB, Fiani N and Peralta S (2020) Levels of Evidence in Small Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Literature Over 40 Years. Front. Vet. Sci. 7:454. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00454

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Exercise - Searching a grey lit site

  • Overseas Development Institute - https://odi.org/
    • What methods of poverty alleviation have been utilized in India in the last decade?

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  • OECD - https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/
    • What factors contribute to reading performance in teens?

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  • SocArXiv - https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/
    • What changes have religious denominations made in response to the pandemic?

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Comments or questions

about the site you tried?

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Exporting grey literature

  • Full text is often easy to find
  • Few have good options
  • Citation manager issues
  • Work-arounds
    • Copy-and-paste
    • Review within each database (worksheet)

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🔑

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Grey Literature Reporter

https://www.eshackathon.org/software/grey-lit-reporter.html

⚠️ 🚧 ⚠️

⚠️ 🚧 ⚠️

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Grey literature documentation example:

https://osf.io/eht9d/

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Interested in learning more?

Searching the Grey Literature

By Sarah Bonato

2018

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Thanks!

Any questions?�You can find me at:

  • erb29@cornell.edu

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