SOCIAL SCIENCES 1SS3 - Inquiry in the Social Sciences: Social and Public Policy

1. Preview: See what you can learn about a text before reading it.

2. Contextualize: Situate a text in its historical, biographical and cultural contexts.

3. Question: Ask questions about the text in order to understand it.

4. Reflect: Consider whether this text challenged any of your preexisting beliefs. 

5. Summarize: Outline and identify main ideas in your own words.

6. Evaluate: Assess the credibility and logic of the text.

7. Compare:Consider similarities and differences between this text and others.

(adapted from: http://www.salisbury.edu/counseling/new/7_critical_reading_strategies.html)

Grey Literature is

“…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.”

Schnopfel J. (2010, December).Towards a Prague definition of grey literature. Paper presented at: Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature: Transparency in Grey Literature. Grey Tech Approaches to High Tech Issues, Prague, Czech Republic  Available from: http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00581570/document.

It can be used to supplement books and journals when conducting research as it provides a different perspective and is commonly more current than different materials.

Examples of Grey Literature include:

• conference papers and proceedings
• government documents
• reports
• policy documents

and many more which you can find here.