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Criminology: Grey Literature

This page helps researchers recognize grey literature, and provides links to some websites where grey literature can be found.

What is Grey Literature?

Grey Literature is material that is produced by organizations that are not considered traditional commercial or academic publishers. Grey literature does not usually undergo formal peer-review, but can still be considered authoritative depending on the publishing organization or individual’s recognized expertise. There is a lot of debate over what materials are considered grey literature; if you have any doubt if a resource you would like to use can be considered grey lit for the purposes of your assignment, contact your instructor to find out how they would classify it. This page provides some links to some general sources of grey literature, but it is by no means comprehensive.

Grey literature can include:

  • Policy documents
  • Government website pages
  • Commission reports
  • Association publications
  • Theses and dissertations
  • Technical reports
  • Conference papers
  • Non-government organization (NGO) publications
  • Statistics, surveys, research reports
  • Standards or regulations
  • Annual reports
  • Popular (non-peer-reviewed) magazine articles

Available Through Laurier Library

Canada Commons - Provides access to the Canadian Public Documents Collection (CPDC)

The Conference Board of Canada - Contains all of the Conference Board's periodical publications, research reports and economic studies.

PAIS Index - International index to various types of publications on public/social policy and social sciences.

Available Online

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

An independent, non-partisan research institute concerned with issues of social, economic and environmental justice.

Canadian Council on Social Development

A not-for-profit organization that partners and collaborates with all sectors (not-for-profit, philanthropic, government and business) and communities to advance solutions to today’s toughest social challenges.

Canadian Think Tanks (McGill University)

Document that provides an A-Z list of Canadian Think Tanks.

The Council of Canadians

A social action organization.

Institute for Social Research (York University)

Houses the largest university-based survey research centre in Canada.

NGO Search - This custom Google search targets non-governmental organizations. See a list of the covered URLs.

IGO Search - This custom Google search targets international governmental organizations. See a list of the covered URLs.