Outliers Malcolom Gladwell Analysis

In the book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell intended to teach the readers about the many different rules that he discussed in his book, to help with the understanding people have of success. Gladwell defines outliers as “men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary” (Gladwell 17). Gladwell accurately applies the rhetorical techniques of logos, exemplification, and repetition to effectively employ how highly successful people are outliers.

In the first chapter Gladwell explains the advantages many people get that aid them in becoming an outlier. It isn't a skill or talent. It’s

Audience: Outliers answers the unanimous question about those who become successful and “what they’re like”, “what makes someone successful?” or “what are successful people like?”. Gladwell directs his book towards an extremely broad audience. He talks about financial success, musical success, athletic fame, and everything in between, interesting everyone because who does not want to be successful? Outliers teaches lessons that are beneficial to people of all ages, and shows the readers what it takes to make it to the top.

Then goes and re-examines each story in such a detail matter, that he pinpoints the unknown facts that led to that person success. Gladwell unmasked our so called "big shoots" in our nation through a series of factual, ethical, and emotional evidence. He uses a structured balance between logos, and ethos to truly define an outlier in our society. In the first chapter of the Outliers Gladwell

The introduction of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, is used to introduce the idea of an outlier. As he stated, “[an outlier is] a place that lay outside everyday experience, where normal rules did not apply. Roseto was an outlier”. People and events that are outliers are essentially the same; they lay outside everyday people or events, where normal rules don’t apply. He describes the case of a town called Roseto in Pennsylvania, an outlier in the health world. A physician named Stewart Wolf was amazed by this town, finding that “virtually no one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of heart disease. For men over sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in Roseto was roughly half that of the United States

In the first Chapter of his book, Outliers, Malcom Gladwell writes to his readers about a hockey game. This hockey game is the Memorial Cup hockey championship game for the two best teams in the Canadian Hockey League, the Vancouver Giants and the Medicine Hat Tigers. The Vancouver Giants end up winning the game that night and their coach told the media, “There isn’t one guy who didn’t buy in wholeheartedly.” Gladwell then poses a question to his readers; can you be born into success or can you earn success? Many people have earned their way to success by hard work, yet many have had privileges that led them to their own successes.

This is also seen in the educational system, where it is referred to as the Matthew Effect, where students born January - March are given a complete advantage over the “rest”. By using these

In Outliers, Gladwell’s main argument or claim is that the way people initially see success and intelligence, should not just be the individual itself, but where and how that individual became who they were. Gladwell highlights the fact that “People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage” (19) and that outliers don’t “sprout from the earth” (269) but are made because of various factors such as age, race, where they were born, and the environment they grew up 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.

One example that he talks about is “The Matthew Effect”. “The Matthew Effect” is shown through the Medicine Hat Tigers elite hockey team of Canada; if one was to look at the roster, which includes their birth dates, they would find something quite peculiar. Most of the players were born in the early months of the year, for instance, January, February, and March. The cutoff date for making the elite team is also January 1st; meaning that all the hockey players born close to the cutoff date would be enrolled for the next year and therefore, have a whole year on people born in December of that same year. Not only are the early month players physically developing more quickly, but they also get more practice, which causes them to be more successful than others and have a huge advantage. The same results also appeared in Czech junior soccer teams as the cut off date was also January 1st. Gladwell states, “...the Czech soccer coaches might as well have told everyone born after mid-summer that they should pack their bags and go home” (27). Overall, this effect helps contribute to Gladwell’s main statement about opportunity, which is that the opportunities presented to you stem from the month, year, or era you were born in, your culture, and your family background. Sometimes they are even presented to you just by luck but, with either case, to become successful, you must be able to notice your opportunities and then invest yourself in

By definition, success is a person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity. How an individual reaches the point of success is “not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky- but all critical to making them who they are” (285). Throughout the book, Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, the pieces of the secret to success are put together. Three parts of success include pure luck, the amount of time and effort put into working to achieve your goal and where you come from.

The meaning of “success” has numerous interpretations, whether it is your own or society’s definition. Within Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell explains that being successful has nothing to do with your personality, so whether you are intelligent and hardworking or lazy and aloof, it depends on your circumstances growing up. Whether your parents are immigrants, you are the smartest man alive or have a habit of rigorous practice, your own personal success differs. However, Gladwell says that the conditions you grow up in affects your success. The idea of being successful varies from culture to culture. Therefore, there’s no definite meaning of success other than one’s interpretation.

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

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

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