In chapters five and six of Freakanomics, the authors address parenting and how parents' choices and financial status can affect their children's lives. Levitt makes an example of one of his studies on the safety of backyard swimming pools. He concluded that children are 100 times more likely to die by drowning in a backyard pool than by a gun. This book was written by two credible authors, Steven D. Levitt, a economics professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen J. Dubner, a former writer and editor at The New York Times Magazine.
With so much talk going around about child safety and improving it, Levitt probably wanted to provide concrete evidence on ways to increase safety with a research experiment. That is why he conducted the backyard swimming pool experiment; he wanted to find out how safe it was for children to be swimming in backyard swimming pools. His purpose was not only to inform people, specifically parents with young children, but also to provide shocking facts and statistics about how parents' socioeconomic status have the greatest impact on children's academic success. Although many rhetorical devices are used throughout this book, logos was the most prominent. Many data tables and statistics are used to create a credible narrative. This whole book is based on logic and facts. The swimming pool experiment is a prime example of logos. Levitt appeals to the readers by coming up with a shocking statistic through thorough research and analysis. Overall, I think Levitt and Dubner did an excellent job in accomplishing their main purpose, which is to educate the masses through an informative yet interesting book about economics, the study of incentives.
No comments:
Post a Comment