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America Needs Its Nerds Summary

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America Needs Its Nerds, written by Leonid Fridman, expresses the country’s need for studious people. The United States look down on kids that would rather learn than play sports. Leonid argues that this anti-intellectualism idea is not good for the greater community. Without intellectuals the U.S. will not be as great as countries that value academics. Leonid Fridman uses motifs, hyperboles, and criticizing questions to support his argument on how nerds and geeks are essential to society. Leonid Fridman starts out by using the hyperbole, ostracized, to initiate his argument. “Nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized” (line 18). Intellectuals are not truly expelled from society, nevertheless they held to a lower standard. Meanwhile, …show more content…

“In most industrialized nations, not least of all our economic rivals in East Asia, a kid who studies hard is lauded and held up as an example to other students” (line 37-40). Every other successful country values intellectual people. Instead of being outcasted they are praised. “How can a country where typical parents are ashamed…. Of their son reading Weber…… be expected to compete in the technology race with Japan or remain a leading political and cultural force in Europe?” (line 47-52). America does not value academics like other countries, therefore their advancements would be better. There is no way to compete with countries that care about their academics. “How long can America remain a world-class power if we constantly emphasize socials skills and physical prowess over academic achievement and intellectual ability?” (line 53-56). There is bound to be the decline of power for the U.S. Fridman is asking these critical rhetorical questions to bring up the problem with outcasting nerds. They are the ones that keeps America a world power and without them our rival can over power us. This rhetorical question is forcing the reader to think about how serious the problem is and by society valuing physical fitness over academia it is keeping the country from

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380 Words | 2 Pages

Well known article writer, Leonid Fridman, in his article, “America Needs Its Nerds”, describes the truthful idea that nerds and geeks, in our society, are ostracized while the kids who play sports and party are prominent. Fridman’s purpose is to impress upon the readers that nerds should not have to conform to society’s unimpressive values of what it means to be “popular”. He adopts an indignant tone in order to convey to his readers that the idea of nerds and geeks needs to fought. Fridman moves to the idea that children who would rather read and build model airplanes are the social outcasts compared to the ones who would rather play football and get wasted at parties.

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615 Words | 3 Pages

For instance, he claims, “according to the Webster's New World Dictionary,” a geek “is a street performer who shocks the public by biting off heads off live chickens” (lines 5-8). Clearly, Fridman chooses to begin his argument with a shocking fact in order to establish an indisputable basis for his argument. Moreover, he maintains that students “ostracized for their intelligence” “are deprived of a chance to learn adequate social skills and acquire good communication tools” (line 23-27). Here, Fridman explains through a cause and effect relationship that students who pursue knowledge are excluded and therefore put at a disadvantage in personal interaction. By demonstrating his point in a cause-and-effect relationship, Fridman appeals to the reasoning skills of his reader.

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Keith Shirey is a writer for The Spoof!, an online website that focuses on what the title echoes. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a spoof is a light humorous parody (Spoof). Most spoofs are only supposed to only be taken with a grain of salt, but some writers use it to add emphasis to their writing. When analyzing Keith’s article “College Football Teams Should Go Semi-Pro”, he uses examples of humor, ridicule, statistics, and emotional appeal to stress his argument to the typical person that college football has become so enormous that they could create their own semi-pro teams.

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Summary In Andrew Delbanco's essay, College At Risk, he talks about college education in America and at some different points, he compares them to other countries education systems. In the beginning of his essay, the basis of American college education is discussed, and how furthering your education past high school helps us become productive adults. It is also mentioned how college is a place to expand your knowledge and critical thinking skills. It is pointed out that other countries may have a better education system and possibly outperform the U.S. when it comes to certain jobs.

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Leonid Fridman characterizes the typical American mindset this makes the text easily understood and relatable for the readers. Because the problem at hand is mainly geared toward Americans he brings up the fact that, “In most industrialized nations, not least of all of our economic rivals in East Asia, a kid who studies hard is lauded and held up as an example to other students.” He is showing the reader that in other countries they praise the children for their academic efforts unlike the US that use derogatory language like “nerd” and “geek” when referring to the academically achieving people. He also compares the jobs of individuals from other countries to show the divide between the American mindset and the mindset around the world. Fridman states “In many parts of the world university professorships are the most prestigious and materially rewarding positions but not in America…” Friedman says this so the readers are aware of the rift between America and other countries of the world especially their view of intellectual

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William Henry wrote, “In Defense of Elitism”, he argues that colleges are letting too many students in, and that some of the students that are in college do not really deserve to be there. He thinks that the reason for the dumbed down education system is because of letting in too many students that do not need to attend college. In “America Skips School”, by Benjamin Barber, he believes that the teachers of todays generation blame kids for the fall of

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Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and

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In paragraph 37, Rosin’s limited thoughts of educational background exclude men’s competence in the society. He starts by arguing that “If you really want to see where the world is heads… looking at the current workforce can get you only so far,” but it is only focused on the development of society and economy which only a small part. Individual’s leisure time, public peace, and happiness index also can be an indicator of the world’s growth spiritually. Furthermore, she states that “to see the future… you need to spend some time at America’s colleges and professional schools”, and it means that Rosin puts emphasis on educational background. There are numerous educational institutions other than America’s colleges and professional schools in

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Brent Staple’s essay "Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A's" had various elements that helped provided evidence and persuade the readers. The first thing I noticed when reading this essay was the comparison between the marketplace and college. This comparison helps to develop Staple’s argument because it explains something that is unfamiliar by comparing it to something that is more familiar. I can assume that the target readers were business men and women. Since I am unfamiliar with some business terms, I found that this essay explained something that was unfamiliar with something else that was unfamiliar.

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He uses this pattern of logic in this piece by observing that every American college is most likely going to defend and state that a college education is one of the most important achievement in a person’s lifetime. A college education will help them earn more economically, it will help them become an informed citizen, and to be more curious about the world through knowledge. However, Delbanco also makes a point by saying that the college education system will only improve if it is fair toward all different kinds of people. The argument is convincing how college still matter, but it will only truly be the best once it throws away all of the discrimination and includes anyone who seeks to pursue an education. Delbanco shows that the arguments are convincing but have failed to consider how discrimination in democracy still

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1248 Words | 5 Pages

One of the history's greatest figures, Nelson Mandela, once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Over the course of years, this statement has only become more relevant. Maybe that is the reason why the topic of the decline of the American education has been recently spurring such a heated debate among national academic and teaching communities. In “The Chronicle of Higher Education”, Carl Singleton, a faculty member at Fort Hays State University, also presented his reflections concerning the U.S. education system.

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289 Words | 2 Pages

In the article, “Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America” Ray Williams discusses the increasing trend of anti-intellectualism in American culture. There is an anti-intellectualism that exists in American culture that is the result of the unpopularity of being smart in High School, the lack of the importance of teachers in the U.S. compared to Japan and the effect of reality TV and pop culture. Williams indicates that one of the reasons that anti-intellectualism exists is that education in the United States is not as strong as it once was. Williams says, “After leading the world for decades in 24-34 year olds with university degrees, the U.S. is now in 12th place. The World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. at 52nd among 139 nations

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The Rhetorical Analysis of the “America Needs its Nerds” The mental capacity is treated as a disadvantage in the America, despite the fact it already helped the country many times. This long-term problem became the main topic of the Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs its Nerds”. The work first appeared on January 11, 1990 in the New York Times as a part of the series “Voices of the New Generation”. The author spoke about the negative attitude the American society has to smart people and demonstrates it with the usage of words like “nerd” or “geek”.

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745 Words | 3 Pages

The main argument is that perceived throughout the reading is that the schools itself is failing students. They see a student who may not have the greatest test scores or the best grades, and degrade them from the idea of being intellectual. Graff states, “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic” (Graff 244). Schools need to channel the minds of street smart students and turn their work into something academic.

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533 Words | 3 Pages

While transitioning between his two tones in his reading, the author steps out of the main story to address the reader more directly in order to appeal to authority. He explains in a more detailed fashion why the students end up behaving so uninterestingly towards anything academic. This appeal is also logical in the sense of following the mind process of a student in a remedial class; from wanting to learn something new, to telling him or herself “Why bother?” and giving up on school. Rose presents his argument using all of the three classical appeals.

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