Analysis Of The Book ' Freakonomics '

In the book Freakonomics, written by economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubne, the authors go through different parts of modern life to show how economics describes why people act a certain way as well as the way specific outcomes occur. They look into different aspects of society and view them with different perspectives. With the use of specific data and the fundamentals of economics, the very obscure comparisons and the different chapters in the book show correlation between economics and human nature. The main point of this book is to explain a few fundamental ideas through the answers of strange questions and how they play a major role in society.

Author Wheelan writes, "Life is about trade-offs, and so is economics." Indeed, so is Naked Economics. This book promises to be a good introduction to economics for the layman. Throughout the book, the author uses easy-to-understand language and vivid examples to illustrate his points in strategic places maintaining a sense of lightness with the readers in reading the material. Here is a summary of each of the 12 Chapters of the book Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan.

​Freakonomics is a book that explores the many possibilities of why some things are the way they are. Principles of everyday life are examined and explained while Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner search for logic in statistical economics. This book answers the questions: how can things affect what people do, why are things the way they are, and why experts routinely make up statistics. This book highlights the commonalities between schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers as well as the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents, the life of drug dealers, criminals, and the art of parenting.

There are many aspects for my mind to conceive while reading the articles why I write by George Orwell and Joan Didion. There are many different factors in triggering an author’s imagination to come up with what they want to write, and why they want to write it. In most writings a purpose is not found before the writer writes, but often found after they decide to start writing.

1.) What is the author's main thesis (argument) in setting up his book? Why/how are

In chapter 2 of Freakonomics the main argument is that the absence of information can be used for personal gain. The main example used to display this tactic is when the KKK is compared to real estate agents. Although the crafty practice of real estate agents is in no way similar to the horrors of the KKK, they have a distinct similarity when it comes to the hoarding of information. The majority of the chapter focuses on the history of the KKK and Stetson Kennedy’s effort to stop it through the infiltration and exposure via radio of the Klan. Since the Klan was dependant on their violent—despite not being extremely violent—reputation, the disclosure of the information they had withheld from the public rendered them powerless. The narrators

For this review I read Freakonomics written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. This book was published by William Morrow an Imprint of HarperCollins and is copyrighted 2005. Freakonomics is a unique book where there is no central story. It is not a story where it goes from point a to point b and follows a traditional storyline. This book is broken up into a collection of mini stories where the authors try explore issues and approach them from a non-conventional way of thinking. Some of these issues in the book include comparing Ku Klux Klan members to real estate agents, why drug dealers live with their moms, and linking abortion to criminal rates. The book addresses the issues at hand and uses data they have accrued and in their

In the United States, we encounter quite a bit of obstacles that we can’t seem to get rid of completely. We as a nation deal with inflation, unemployment, stagflation, recessions, depressions, and so much more. Reading these three articles opened my eyes to the world of economics, and even made me question the society we live in. I’ve learned that sometimes questions can’t be answered, and I learned that once we solve one issue, there is always another issue on its way. These articles made me analyze, and think about the future of economics, and what I can do to try and help the economy. These authors of these three articles make it very clear that there are issues in the United States, and they do an amazing job

In what way are schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers similar? At first, this question might be puzzling, but the answer is provided in the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Freakonomics is the result of a partnership between an award winning economist, Steven D. Levitt, and a journalist, Stephen J. Dubner. The duo decided upon making a book after Dubner was given an assignment to profile Levitt. Dubner realized that Levitt took a different approach to economics than other economists and he saw that Levitt had an interesting and effective way to explain statistics. This pushed the two to release the 315 page book to the public in 2005 in New York, New York. Since then, the book has flourished and has been republished numerous times. In Freakonomics, Dubner and Levitt reveal that fundamental ideas of economics can be used to interpret just about everything in modern society. The book focuses on a few key points including; incentives are the driving force behind everything, conventional wisdom is often wrong, small causes can often have dramatic effects, and the advantages of having information. The authors use many interesting stories and statistics to demonstrate these economic themes in the modern world. Stories include how some school teachers in the Chicago school system cheat, the influence that the legalization of abortions had on crime rates, and how real estate agents tend to sell their own homes for higher prices than if they

Copy three important passages (minimum of 3 sentences each); and then respond to these passages. Why do you think they are important? How do they help the author create his purpose?

Why do we need a purpose for writing a book? For example the book The Maze Runner by James Dashner? An Author Purpose is the reason an author decides to write about a specific topic. James Dashner who wrote the novel The Maze Runner was trying to inform us, Sense of hope and to entertain his readers by studying their brain patterns. They were trying to figure out how the brain patterns of a non-immune.

Author's have three main purposes in writing to persuade, inform and to entertain. The author uses text structures to explain his or her purpose.

2.      Identify the author’s main idea(s). In other words, what is the main point the author is attempting to make about the book?

What they were all responding to was the force of Levitt’s underly- ing belief: that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not un- knowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more in- triguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. - Stephen J. Dubner.

For now, I'll set aside considerations of why The Goal is a novel, how effective it is as a book, whether it succeeds as literature, and so on. This article is primarily about the ideas behind the book, and why some are valuable while others are probably quite useless.