TOW #12: "Freakonomics" (IRB)

                A few years ago, I stumbled upon Outliers, a book by Malcolm Gladwell, where he discussed the seemingly impossible ways someone could become successful. When I picked up Freakonomics, I expected something similar, and I was glad to find out that it was indeed similar. Freakonomics explains many of the behind-the-scenes events that go on in various situations, some of which readers like me could have never imagined. The author’s Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, on an economist and one a writer, did a great job revealing the secrets of commonplace events. Throughout the book, the authors use narrative and astounding statistics to encourage readers to seek out the hidden side of every scenario they find themselves in.

                Early in their story, the authors discuss a small business owner who started selling bagels to see how honest his customers were. This seemed quite odd, but the authors of the book went further discussing how he eventually would be bringing, “fifteen dozen bagels a week. In order to recoup his costs, he set out an openbasket and a sign with the suggested price” (41). This is intriguing to the readers of the book because the oddity of the owner’s actions left them wanting to know more about what he set out to do. Later, this narrative is combined with statistics to show how the owner gauged his customers. The author’s restate the owner’s findings, showing that, “smaller offices are more honestthan big ones. An office with a few dozen employees generally outpays by 3 to 5 percent” (44). The use of the statistic after the narrative shows some rather confounding results, because the authors explain the paradox the statistics in this case create. Overall, the narrative is used to engage the audience and show them what can occur in various situations and the statistic is used to reinforce that and reveal the hidden side to that claim.

                Events as commonplace as bringing in bagels to work are used quite often throughout the story, and these help the reader relate to the scenarios better and understand the inner workings of the occurrences around them. The book is so far every entertaining, and there is still more confounding results to report.