Critical Response #4

The first and utmost step that parents take when the mother is pregnant is coming up with the baby's name. Many parents pick the names of someone that is important to them. Others try to pick an original name so they child can be unique. In the book Freakonomics, authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner talk about this very same idea but in a context of whether the name will have an affect on the child's success in life. They also discuss the common names from the different races. 

The authors believe that names have no significance on whether they will have a bright future or not. They argue the case that a child's name is given to him depending on the parents economical status. One anecdote that was given in Freakonomics was the story of Winner and Loser. In the anecdote, the parents gave one of their children the name of Winner thinking that it will effect his future status. They had another child, and gave him the name Loser for no apparent reason. It turned out that Winner became a criminal and Loser became a successful police officer. Moreover, this shows that naming a child a certain name has no correlation on whether the child will have a strong economical background.

Levitt and Dubner also discussed the most popular "black" names and the most popular "white" names. They also discussed names of people that have high or low incomes, high-end and low-end, and the name of parents that have the highest or lowest education. In conclusion, authors Levitt and Dubner believe there is no correlation between an intelligent name and for the child to actually be intelligent. 

My name is not mentioned in the study and the statistics given by the book. I have a traditional Arabic name, which is very common in the Middle East. Names in the Middle East revolve around religion. The most common name in the world "Mohammad" is actually the Prophet Mohammad the messenger of God. Our names usually have a significant meaning to them. For instance my name, Seifeddin, means sword of religion. In other words, having this name doesn't affect the way I will be in the future but that my parents are very religious.

Discipline and Punish by: Annette Fuentes

Many students get punished for their acts that they commit. Students in young ages were punished by horsing around and just being a young person. For example, Bryson a young black student gets caught acting like he has a real gun but its actually his hand, gets punished by the principal. The pricipal decideds to suspend him. Many of these students tend to become dropouts because many schools have a zero tolerance rule, which means that the first time you commit something bad no matter how bad it is you get the same punishment as others. These kids being dropouts become criminals. A large number of incidents are occuring because many school are decreasing their tolerance for students who commit acts that seem like a threat to others. In conclusion, Annette Fuentes shows that schools with zero tolarence are causing students to be criminals and dropouts.

Critical Response #3

In the book Freakonomics, there are topics throughout the book based on flaws in our world. In chapter two of Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner show that real-estate agents indeed have many flaws that they posses. A real-estate agent always tries to make the most profit for "himself". When clients come to him for placing their house on the market for sale, the real-estate agent tries to seal the deal with the first customer. Real-estate agents don't make much out of houses because they get a very small percentage of the final price. A real-estate agent could actually get more money for the person but chooses not too because he get a profit of a little amount that wouldn't make a difference for him. For example, in the book, the authors proclaim that "the problem is that the agent only stands to personally gain an additional $150 by selling your house for $10,000 more..." (Levitt and Dubner, 65) Furthermore, real-estate agents use hidden methods to disguise the look of the real house.

Real-estate agents are basically con-artists. Lets say they receive property that is not in very good condition and doesn't really look that nice. In order to actually sell this property then the real-estate agent must lie by saying that the house is "charming" or "in a good neighborhood" or even "fantastic." (Levitt and Dubner, 67) The reason is because if they say the truth about the house do you think it will actually sell? These terms are too broad and not very specific. Lets say a real-estate agent gets a property that is very nice and has very nice attributes like "granite" tabletops in the kitchen or even a "corian" dinning table. (Levitt and Dubner, 69) These aspects of a house could be advertised because not all house have these known to be beautiful materials in them. So the real-estate agent would include these aspects to get a higher bid but at the same time telling the truth. Moreover, stuff like this happens in everyday life.

Using descriptive and interesting words to make stuff look better is very often. For example, I sold my DJ set a few days ago. Yes, it is used but is very high-tech and rare to find around the world. So I included the best features about the system like "double channels in one channel." It is obvious that only a DJ would understand what I mean. For a person that is new to DJ's this sounds amazing. Relating it to the book, lets say one real-estate writes that the house is "gorgeous," another real-estate will look right through that and not believe it fully. The same goes for DJ's. A person that has a bad DJ set and wanted to sell it would say that it is "high-tech" and "in great condition." Who cares about these terms? A person with a good DJ set (like mine) would say the pieces contain "effects like filter, flanger, echo, and delay." This is an example of a person that has a good DJ set because he went into the specifics and the characteristics of the object. In conclusion, many till this day fall into the trap set by people that provide bad offers but say it is a good one.

Introduction to Freakonomics

It takes an expert to explain the hidden sides of everything. In the novel, "Freakonomics " authors Steven D. Levitt graduate of Harvard and Stephen J. Dubner a talented economist, come together under the consent of the New York Times, to write a book about the riddles of economics. In the introduction of "Freakonomics," Dubner and Levitt show people how there is something that they don't realize about many experts in the world. They focus mostly on criminologists, real-estate agents, and political candidates. Dubner and Levitt use a sarcastic tone and provide anecdotes to explain to people that there are hidden sides of everything.

They start the introduction by talking about crime in the United States. Criminologist James Alan Fox, makes a hypothesis that crime rates will increase 15 percent in a optimistic scenario and double in a pessimistic scenario (Levitt, 2), because of "ruthless" (Levitt, 1) teenagers that roam the streets murdering and car jacking. According to his false hypothesis, the crime rates fell to the "lowest level in thirty-five years" (Levitt, 2). Criminologist's then believed it was because of "the proliferation of gun control laws" (Levitt, 3). Levitt and Dubner felt that is was mostly because of a "poor, uneducated, unskilled, alcoholic, drug-using twenty-one year-old, Dorma McCorvey. Her and her attorney, Jane Roe, fought for the legalization of abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor. Levitt and Dubner's reason to why this aspect impoved crime rates was because of the fact that when children are brought up in poor lifestyles, they are most likely going to be criminals (Levitt, 4). Authors Levitt and Dubner show credibility towards this aspect and support it by a strong anecdote.

The pursue to persuade goes in the next subject of real-estate agents. Many people believe that hiring an expert will do a better job. In the case of real-estate, it is the opposite that people expect to happen. Many real-estate agents sell property for cheaper then they could actually get on the estate. Due to laziness and lack of motivation agents try to spend the least amount of time on selling houses for their clients. For example, the agent sells the property for $300,000 which is a good deal for you. But what is indeed a fact is that the agent could have made you an extra$9,400 by selling the house for $310,000. The reason is because waiting an extra couple of days for agents to get you the price of $310,000, will only make them an extra $150 that they take to their pockets (Levitt, 5-7). 

Dubner and Levitt provide many facts that indeed there is a hidden side of everything. Dubner and Levitt show that they are credible for talking about the riddles of economics. They use many anecdotes to support their idea and use many statistics to portray the intensity of the anecdotes. In conclusion, with Dubner and Levitt's background of higher education and professional experience, they show that they have credibility in this topic.

Introduction

I'm an international student currently enrolled in Texas A&M. My chosen major is Petroleum Engineering. I am from Syria but I moved here from Saudi Arabia where I have lived for the past two years of my life.

Howdy!

My name is Seifeddin Badri and I am in English 104 Section 578.