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Analysis Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Decent Essays

Malcolm Gladwell argues that hard work and practice has more value than “innate talent” (Gladwell 1) in an excerpt from Chapter 2 “The 10,000-Hour Rule” of his novel Outliers: The Story of Success. Although he acknowledges that talent can be a factor in success, Gladwell believes that a person’s choice to work hard is what ultimately determines their achievements. To support this claim, he alludes to famous musicians and cites psychologists and other scientists to establish credibility, with the attempt to convince the audience that hard work overrules talent. His passage has a very clear and academic tone, making it easy for the audience to understand and not get confused. In the beginning of the passage, Gladwell references an experiment performed by K. Anders Ericsson to determine if there were …show more content…

He implies this study indicated that those who were better became so due to practice rather than natural ability. Gladwell then states how in this study and others, the amount of hours needed to achieve “true expertise” is “ten thousand hours” (Gladwell 5). Quoting neurologist Daniel Levitin, Gladwell connects to the audience by including a quote referencing many activities that the audience may know or take part in: ‘In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again’ (Gladwell 6). The inclusion of this quote not only connects with the audience, it also make himself appear more credible, now having multiple scientists words to support his claim. Gladwell argues that if so many scientists have concluded that ten thousand hours is required for mastery, then practice is substantially more important than natural talent. He finally concludes the excerpt by extending his claim out to prodigies such as

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