Essay On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

He utilizes repetition in order to exhibit how we have the ability to make significant predictions with such small hints based on our experiences despite how unrealistic it might seem. For example, John Gottman is a psychologist who can watch an hour of a husband and wife talking and “can predict with 95 percent accuracy whether the couple will still be married fifteen years later” (Gladwell 21). Gottman has trained his brain to thin-slice marriages by focusing on what he calls the “Four Horsemen” (Gladwell 32

He asks, “How are human beings connected? Do we all belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, so that the links between any two people, anywhere in the world are few and distant? Or are we all bound up together in a grand, interlocking web? (Page 34)” Gladwell doesn’t actually expect readers to come up with an answer, but he does realize that readers wouldn’t consider these questions had he not put the questions in their heads to start with. By doing this he allows his audience to form their own opinions on the questions asked before he reveals what answers the questions were originally designed to expose. Gladwell effectively uses rhetorical questions to get the audience interested early on, therefore making the information given in the selection more important.

An ineffective device used by Gladwell was his use of repetition of evidence and failure to acknowledge counterexamples by forcing the reader into thinking that Gladwell’s theory is the only one possible to be correct. The lack of acknowledgment towards counterexamples thrusts the audience into thinking that Gladwell’s opinion is the only viable one. “Philip Norman, who wrote the Beatles biography”, “nonstop show, hour after hour”, “Here is John Lennon”, and “playing all night long” are examples of repetition of evidence because the author already established that the

Without these two strategies, Gladwell would have failed to draw attention and transition from section to section, or build up to and eventually defend his claim with any undeniable facts. Statistics and rhetorical questions do not only apply to arguments about success, but they are also rhetorical mediums that can be and are used in a variety of ways. Rhetorical questions can be seen on posters, in ads, and in any strong paper. How’s that for applicability? Statistics are most commonly found in visual advertisements and websites. They use evidence that cannot be discredited to credit any possible argument. The reason these two strategies work so well together is that questioning adheres to the visceral and emotional side of an audience, while cold, hard numbers build credibility and respect to logic and reasoning. This results in a powerful one-two punch that left many Gladwell readers wondering if they missed the chance to be great because of something as simple as a set of numbers and slashes on a

The tone that Gladwell uses in Outliers is long sentences to get his points across to the readers. He uses key points. There were some metaphors used in the book when he talks about the tallest oak trees in the forest and they helped describe the situation and what was being talked about. Many people are cognitive of outliers once they have read the book thoroughly. Some imagery was also showed when Gladwell talked about the winning team and how all of the players and reporters crammed into the locker room. Some people fancy the way that outliers think, act, and how they are successful. These

To start with, Gladwell uses ethos, an appeal to ethics, as a device to effectively explain how

An Outlier is someone who stands out in a group due to their mastery of a certain skill and because of that they are successful. According to Gladwell not anyone can become successful; it takes the right circumstances and opportunities. Human’s capability seems limitless, and if we put in the time and hard work we can achieve our goals. We as a society love to think that a person may become successful and that we all have the same opportunities and chance of succeeding if we just work hard enough. According to Malcom Gladwell, the author of the book Outlier’s these common beliefs are incorrect and are not the means of a person becoming successful. The main theme throughout Gladwell’s Outlier’s is that successful

Malcolm Gladwell insists throughout his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that the recipe for achievement is not simply based on personal talents or innate abilities alone. Gladwell offers the uncommon idea that outliers largely depend upon “extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies” (Gladwell19). According to Gladwell, successful men and women are beneficiaries of relationships, occasions, places, and cultures. The author draws on a different case study in each chapter to support a particular argument concerning success. Despite his indifference and suppression in regards to counterarguments, Gladwell’s claims are effective for many reasons, including through the accounts of experts, tone and style of writing, and the

“There is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success” (Gladwell 18). In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell is trying to convince his audience that they misunderstand how people become successful. Many believe one only needs hard work and determination in order to achieve success. However, Gladwell complicates this idea by explaining that hard work and determination is not how people become successful and instead, it is all about the opportunities one is given that decides if he or she is successful or not. Gladwell uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos in order to persuade his audience to accept his idea of the process of becoming successful.

Lastly, Gladwell incorporates the audience’s interests to appeal to them in an emotional and engaging method in the subject of the argument, success. The goal for many is to be successful in their specific craft, and even from the title Outliers: The Story of Success Gladwell advertises his own story of success, and the audience believes if they follow the methods that successful people use then they will be successful too. Gladwell gives testimonies of people that would be predictably successful but never made it far due to not having a community to support them to open opportunities. He describes Chris Langan’s lack of credibility and success despite having a higher IQ than Albert Einstein and before he lets Langan describe a typical day

Throughout Gladwell’s text he uses many paradigms. The first paradigm that he uses is in the introduction of the book. Gladwell begins by using a small town in Pennsylvania called Roseto. There was something very unique about this town. A doctor named Stewart Wolfe he found that the rates of heart disease in this little town were significantly less for those under the age of sixty-five, which during the time heart disease was a huge epidemic. Wolfe began to research the obvious things that one would believe to have an impact on heart disease. He looked at diet

Another way that proves that Gladwell better answers the essential question is through a different use of logos, going in depth in the experiments made by psychologists. A quote that supports this claim is, ​"The striking thing about Ericsson's study is that he

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell shines light on extraordinary people and how they achieved the things that they did. He believes that people don’t just achieve things; he goes in depth about how there are certain advantages these people have that affect their ability. Throughout this book, Gladwell has a very distinct tone that he portrays through language, content, imagery that help further describe the tone. Gladwell’s overall tone for this book is positivity and questionable. The remarks made throughout the book make the readers really question how certain things happen, and it also brings an aspect of positivity to the piece.

While the author, Malcolm Gladwell, does not dispute that hard work in a necessary component, we learn that many factors, lucky breaks, and some coincidences all occur in making high achievers into true outliers. We also learn that many of the richest, most famous, and most successful people in

Another reason that I feel Gladwell is a credible author for Outliers is because of his mother’s occupation as a psychotherapist. There is a possibility that his mother’s findings influenced his ideas, or perhaps her occupation influenced him all together to research such sociological and psychological topics.