michigan informatics
Appraising Grey Literature
Often, the first step in evaluating grey literature is to evaluate the organization or website that produced it. A few questions that you should ask are:
- Can I easily identify the organization and/or source of information?
- Have I heard of this organization? Does it have a good reputation?
- What is the purpose of the organization? Is it biased? A nonprofit organization or government agency may be more reliable than a commercial enterprise. Be wary of websites with a lot of advertising.
- Will this organization/website be likely to exist in the future?
Appraising the research itself, the three broad issues that you should look for are [1]:
- Is the study valid?
- What are the results?
- Will the results help locally?
Not all evidence is judged to be of equal value. There are hierarchies of research design that are evaluated to have different strengths, different levels of value in the decision making process. The pyramid below shows a hierarchy of strength of evidence. The weakest, yet most prevelant, evidence is at the bottom and the strongest, also the rarest, evidence at the top.
Levels of Effectiveness of Research-based Prevention [2]
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