Evidence Synthesis: Nursing

Use this guide as a resource for your evidence synthesis research.

What is grey literature?

"Information produced on all levels of government, academia, 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." (ICGL Luxembourg definition, 1997 - Expanded in New York, 2004).

Guides to Grey Literature Searching

Grey Literature Search Engines

  • Canadian Electronic Library collection - a collection of monograph publications from Canadian research institutes, government agencies, and university centres working in the area of health and medical research. Go to OneSearch Advanced and paste "Canadian Electronic Library" into the first search box. Then add your search terms in the other boxes.
  • Grey Literature Report - A search engine and information on grey literature searching
  • Grey Matters - A practical search tool for evidence-based medicine. Follow the link to download the search tool as a .doc file.
  • MedNar - A Deep Web search engine that searches multiple databases.
  • Open Grey - covers Science, Technology, Biomedical Science, Economics, Social Science and Humanities. It provides open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature produced in Europe.

Dissertations

Databases such as CINAHL, PsycINFO, etc. contain dissertations in their results. 

TWU Library Catalogue  - Public Documents Collection

  • The Public Documents Collection (formerly Canadian Electronic Library) is a substantial collection of Canadian grey literature. It contains what was the Canadian Health Research Collection, comprising documents of particular interest to nursing researchers.