Imagine you look at a recipe. Data are your ingredients and Statistics are the final product.
| Data Type | Definition / Example |
|---|---|
| Observational | What you capture in real-time |
| Experimental | What you produce in your lab classes |
| Simulation | Modeling / Machine-generated |
| Derived | Text mining, 3D models |
| Textual | Field / Lab notebooks |
| Discipline-specific | E.g., Viewing stars through a telescope |
| Instrument-specific | E.g., Taking your body temperature |
Gray literature is the information created by organizations such as government agencies, professional associations, research institutes, and think tanks that are not published in scholarly journals or books. This includes:
Gray literature is produced by researchers and practitioners in a field and is an important component of a thorough literature review due to its depth and breadth, timeliness, flexibility, and open access.
Content written by Lisa Clarke (Librarian, NOAA Central Library) in the Gray Literature research guide. Current as of 21 Jun 2023.
Indexes doctoral dissertations and master's theses from North American and European universities from 1861 to the present.
