RG itself would be a useful resource.

Thanks for your replies ! I feel more confident now in addressing this aspect.

I agree that Research Gate may have many articles especially in press or for consideration of publications.

Hi Amit,

This is a good question and one which stumps may reviewers. Before answering where the find "grey" literature, lets look at what do mean by "grey" literature. According to The International Conference on Grey Literature (ICGL), grey literature is defined as "information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body".

Now that we know what "grey" literature is, where do we find it. Apparently, in a number of places. They are:

(1). Web-based grey literature searches - keywords using search engines such as Google, small or obscure databases, searching blogs and specialised directories and locations where data may be archived;

(2). Key agencies - identify key agencies that may be doing work in the area of your systematic review and look through their websites. For example, if I my review topic is on stroke, then i would look at the Stroke Foundation website in Australia as I know they do a lot of research on this topic.

(3). Key authors - as people of mentioned, contacting relevant key authors;

(4). Pearling - looking through reference list of relevant articles;

(5). Hand searching - looking through the table of contents of relevant and key journals.

As you can see, "grey" literature searching is not just using one strategy but multiple strategies. A tip - Searching Google Scholar is not grey literature searching. It is accessing "black" literature from a "grey" literature source.

Now, if you are interested to know more, please have a look at this guide on Systematic Reviews - http://guides.library.unisa.edu.au/SystematicReviews

We, academics and librarians, from UniSA have developed this and I think it might be useful for you.

There is also a separate guide on "grey" literature searching - https://guides.library.unisa.edu.au/GreyLiterature

Good luck with your systematic review, Amit.

S

Hello everyone,

The search strategy to identify relevant studies should be clearly delineated. In particular, it should be determined how much the search strategy will be extended to include unpublished studies, since its results can systematically differ from published studies. Meta-analyzes restricted to published evidence may produce distorted results due to publication bias. For location of published studies, electronic databases are essential and useful, but if they are only used, a substantial proportion of relevant studies may not be retrieved. It is noteworthy that many studies are finalized, but are not published. The main causes of this association would be non-significant or negative results. The identification of these studies is not easy. One possible way is by searching specific databases that record study protocols that will be conducted. For instance, the Clinical Trials ().

Once you have identified a potentially eligible study, you can view your situation as "not started" "in progress" or "finalized." If "in progress", reviewers should ensure that, throughout the conduct of the review, the study has been finalized and published for possible inclusion of the data in the results. If it is complete, you should try to locate it in the various databases. If it is not found, the study authors should be contacted for possible data collection. Contact with fellow researchers is also of great value in the search for unpublished studies, as well as specialists in the subject of the review, authors who stand out in studies that have been selected, pharmaceutical industries or companies of interest in the area to be researched.

For the gray literature there are many definitions. The most commonly used today defines it as a literature that is not formally published in sources such as books, book chapters and journals. According to the Cochrane Handbook 2011 (chapter 6, section 6.2.1.8), gray literature should also be considered in the search strategy process. Conference Proceedings are also important sources and may contain study records that were not included and may alter the results of the review.

Access to gray literature can be done by manual search (handsearching), where the presence of reviewers in congresses and events in the area is necessary, to actively try to identify those studies; or by databases that index this type of literature. As examples of these bases, we can mention the ISI of Knowledge, the British Library Inside, among others. In addition, it is possible to search internationally for theses and dissertations, such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database.

Finally, manual searching is very useful in identifying eligible articles that may not have been retrieved by the search strategy. It can be done by checking the list of "Bibliographic References" of studies included in the review or in previous reviews.

References:

Dickersin, K.; Scherer, R.; Lefebvre, C. Identifying relevant studies for systematic reviews. British Medical Journal, London, v. 309, n. 6964, p. 1286-1291, 1994.

Higgins, J. P. (2011). Green S. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions version 5.1. 0. The cochrane collaboration, 5(0).

All the best,

Lopes-Júnior

Hello everyone,

I am busy with a systematic review. I am somehow stuck or confused or possibly need some guidance. I have completed a search on academic databases and have inserted relevant data in an excel sheet which stipulates the database used, author (s), search terms and so on..Is there any excel template that one could possibly look at to compare whether or check whether I am on the right track? Also, if my working title is broad, how does one narrow it? believe that is by critically working on my review questions. And for the grey literature, do I use the same search terms that I have used in the academic databases or a different search term? And how can one know that they have searched through all grey literature? And the results from the grey literature go in the same excel sheet of academic database? And how does one assess the quality of grey literature articles? Lastly, I find it challenging to choose the type of analysis to use. There is template and content analysis (Does that apply to data extraction and synthesize). How do I know which one is best for my study? And I am curious, what are the key points that one should include during the presentation (pitch) of the final research, any tips are welcome.

Anyone out there able to assist me?

My email: [email protected]

Thank you in advance.

Hi Rita Anton,

There are a lot of questions there - I would highly recommend consulting a health librarian if your institution has one. They should be an expert on many of these questions and be able to guide you through the process of designing a good research question and search strategy.

Regarding the assessment of grey literature, I'd recommend you look at this checklist which focuses on evaluating five particular areas http://hdl.handle.net/2328/3326

Good luck!

Steven

Thank you Steven Chang .