Comp #7 Research Visual

This image shows what the adult illiteracy rates will be at in the year 2015. The areas with the darkest blue have the highest rate which is 50% or more. This research visual relates to my blog as it shows just how much education needs to be placed on reading and writing in the adult demographic, especially in third world countries.

This image was taken off of the website http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID=2867_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics compiles data and research of issues that effect the world.

Comp #6 4 of 4 Successive Fractions

To do the successive fraction search I used the database WORLDCAT. In this search the idea is to narrow down a search by using the broadest facet first and then narrowing it down with narrower facets. The first search I did was using the term "adult" which brought back 270,095 articles. As this is too many books to search through, I added my second facet of "education". Adding this search term it reduced the number of books to 101,359. Still too many to work with, plus they were not relevant to my blog topic. Adding the third search term of "illiteracy" it brought back 475 articles and books. The first hit that came back was the book

"Prisoners of Silence : breaking the bonds of adult illiteracy in the United States"
Author: Kozol, Jonathan.
Publication: New York : Continuum, 1980
Document: English : Book

As this book and articles about it came up in some of my previous searches with different search strategies I found the successive fraction searching technique the best one that I have used for my blog. The thing that I appreciated the most about the WorldCat database was that it offered more information about the hits such as how many libraries carried the book and whether the database subscriber carried it at their library.

Comp #6 3 of 4 Citation Pearl Growing

For this type of search I used the database JSTOR. I used the search terms "literacy" and "illiteracy". When using "literacy" I came back with the article, "Rethinking Literacy: Comparing Colonial and Contemporary America" by Deborah Keller-Cohen, found in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4, Alternative Literacies: In School and Beyond (Dec., 1993), pp. 288-307. From this search I was able to to grow a list of these search terms:

literate practices
learning literacies
literate culture
literate devotion
problems of illiteracy
literate bias
literate education

When using the term "illiteracy" I came back with the article, Overcoming Library Illiteracy by Lorene A. Garloch found in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Mar., 1942), pp. 124-128. While the article is an older one it was able to provide me with other search terms I could use. Those are:

multicultural illiteracy
higher illiteracy
library illiteracy
technical illiteracy

By using this database to employ the search type citation pearl growing, I was able to find many more search terms that could be used in research.

I think that citation pearl growing might be the most beneficial searching term for researchers. It opens up so many more possibilities for searching a subject. I found it beneficial as there are many terms and phrases that I found that would never have occured to me to search.