What is grey literature?

Grey literature refers to articles, reports, and studies published outside of traditional academic publishing channels. Instead of being found in scholarly journals or books from university presses, grey literature is produced by government organizations, think tanks, companies, and other non-traditional publishing sources. This also includes versions of academic articles that have not yet gone through the peer-review process, referred to as white papers, working papers, and/or pre-prints.

How does grey literature relate to my research? Why use it as opposed to scholarly articles?

While grey literature has not gone through the typically rigorous academic peer-review process, there are a number of benefits to delving into grey literature, including:

• More granular findings: Publishers of grey literature are not subjected to the same publishing pressures from academic journals (ex. articles on commonly discussed topics, publishing research with positive results, etc.). They can work with more narrow topical focuses or publish findings with null or negative results. 
• More up-to-date: Because grey literature is not subjected to the months or years-long process of academic peer-review, it can be produced and disseminated much quicker, meaning scholars and readers can get earlier access to recent disciplinary developments.
• More diverse perspectives: Getting insights from authors that do not go through traditional academic publishing avenues offers a chance to broaden one's understanding of a topic.

That being said, there are still some considerations to take when searching for and reading grey literature:

• Peer-Review: Grey literature sources do not always subject their articles to the same rigorous peer-review process as academic journals, meaning their conclusions, though exciting, may not be as thoroughly vetted as conclusions published in academic journals.
• Quality Differences: Because grey literature includes sources from places as disparate as government publications, drafts of academic papers, and conference presentation materials, there can be massive differences in the quality of the writing and research.
• Not always available: Not every grey literature publication, whether published online or in print, will be consistently archived and available. If you know of grey publications you'll want to use, take extra care to properly save location and access information early on, be it through citation or saving documents (when appropriate).

Material adapted from the "Grey Literature" webpage from the University of Exeter Library.