TOW #16: "Freakonomics" (IRB)

            Throughout the past month, I have been reading Freakonomics, an informative, yet entertaining book written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Before starting the read, I expected it to be similar to the book Outliers, written by Malcolm Gladwell, and I am glad to say it has upheld that standard. Freakonomics uses very creative methods to convey information and generally increase the audience’s awareness for the hidden sides of scenarios they are put in. These methods include both short sentences and statistics to prove the hidden side of every scenario.

            Although some of the things mentioned in Freakonomics are quite complex, the authors frequently use the power of the short sentence to emphasize their points. This structure is often used in conjunction with their narratives to simplify the long paragraphs into short meaningful phrases the entire audience can understand, not just economists. For example, when the authors introduce the book, they discuss the idea of conventional wisdom being wrong, and they reduce their long monologue about the topic down to a few short sentences at the end. This allows the authors to emphasize their point about it and give the audience a sense of the examples presented later in the book. Later in the book, while discussing sumo wrestlers and mutual cheating, quite a weird example to the audience, they use short sentences to reduce the complex example to something everyone can easily understand. In this way, the authors are able to extend their message about the hidden side of everything to the entire audience, and therefore, achieve their purpose in writing.

            Statistics are also used throughout the book, and like short sentences, they are used to emphasize the authors’ main talking points. The authors used statistics when describing the role teachers play in students’ standardized test scores. This allowed them to communicate their point about teachers themselves cheating for their students in a much more understandable way. This allows Levitt and Dubner to more effectively communicate the hidden side of various scenarios to their audience, thus achieving their purpose.

            Overall, Freakonomics has been a very enjoyable read. The authors did a great job simplifying information and making me, as a reader, think more deeply about the world around me. This was definitely their true purpose in writing and as I am sure many readers understood it well, that purpose was achieved.