The perils of grey literature

In 2024, the Court of Appeal in Kyle v R confronted a deceptively simple question: can expert witnesses rely on “grey literature”?

- By David Harvey

The trial judge thought not, and with good reason. Grey literature – reports, briefings, and papers produced outside traditional publishing channels – can be timely and useful. But it lacks the authority, transparency, and scrutiny that courts, and the public, depend on.

The category is vast: government reports, dissertations, conference papers, technical memos, even blogs. Its great advantage is speed. Public health officials turn to it because they cannot wait two years for peer review.

But its weaknesses are fatal when credibility is on the line. With no external refereeing, weak bibliographic standards, and often anonymous authorship, grey literature is riddled with risks: selective reporting, hidden bias, and plain inaccuracy.

The AACODS checklist – Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance – offers a way to sift the credible from the worthless. But the checklist also exposes how much of this material fails to meet even basic standards.