What is success? In Outliers, a novel by Malcolm Gladwell, success is explained by looking at people who stand out in their success, the outliers. He focuses on breaking down stories of success and determining how they got to where they are, and what components added to that success. Gladwell argues that success is not earned, but that it is given to people like a gift. He asserts that those who are successful were born at the right place at the right time, given the opportunity to practice their skills, and were taught hard work at a young age. Through his novel, Gladwell reveals what he believes is the key to success.
FIrst off, Gladwell begins his argument on the offensive by using logos tactics. He does so by using a statistic, from
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Nonetheless, there are still other factors that influence one's success, but Gladwell came up with a theory he describes as the 10,000 rule. Incorporating logos to his argument, he explains how the Beatles played 8 hours a day, 7 days a week before being discovered. “By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, in fact, they had performed live an estimated twelve hundred times.” (Gladwell, 50). They must have played for much more than 10,000 hours, making them experts in their music, contributing to their success. Using logos with another example, Gladwell brings attention to the fact that Bill Gates had access to a more modern computer than that of his soon to be competitors. He had plenty of time to become familiar with technology, and by dropping out of college, he was able to focus on his programming skills. “...he’d been programming practically nonstop for seven consecutive years.” (Gladwell, 55). Again, he practiced for well over 10,000 hours, therefore mastering the art of programming. In short, the 10,000 rule basically states that if one practices something for at least 10,000 hours, they have a better chance at succeeding in …show more content…
He appeals to pathos as he explains the stereotype of “Asians being good at math.” He starts by explaining how rice farming works, appealing to pathos and logos, saying how difficult and time consuming the farming is, and how farmers must work diligently to make sure everything goes as planned. He skips ahead and relates that diligence with modern math. switching to ethos, he mentions a study done by an international group of educators. “...the average number of items answered on that questionnaire varies from country to country… In other words, countries whose students are willing to concentrate and sit still long enough… are the same countries whose students do the best job of solving math problems.” (Gladwell, 248). He states how it is the countries who have a history in rice farming excel in academics because they are willing to take the time and focus on the work they have, similar the focus they need while farming. It is a basis on how one is raised, and he claims that generations are taught to put as much time in effort i to their work as they
In this Chapter Gladwell highlights how the common picture of success is achieved is not the one which many individuals think of when they consider the cause of success and shows this with evidence from very successful people. Gladwell employs logos in order to create a logical as well as the factual base for the story. This use is extremely obvious as almost the entire chapter is made up of example that supports his theory on the 10'000 hour rule. In order to concrete his argument, he uses Ethos by constantly employing well-known names in order to build a sense of credibility and citing people who have authority on the scene. He does a good job of using this for its desired purpose. Gladwell redirects his argument with phrases like "Let's
Have you ever wondered what distinguishes successful individuals from ordinary ones? According to Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers," a persuasive chapter that supports the author's claim that successful individuals never achieve their goals alone is "The Three Lessons of Joe Flom." In the chapter "The Three Lessons of Joe Flom" from the book "Outliers", the author provides some statistical evidence that appeals to Logos. For instance, the author quotes "Seventy percent of the Eastern European Jews who arrived at Ellis Island in the thirty years before the First World War possessed some sort of occupational skill" (Gladwell, 142).
How many hours of someone’s life are necessary to perfect a skill? 300? 5000? Perhaps try 10,000 hours. In this chapter from Outliers, “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that talent isn’t innate, but takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill based on opportunity, talent, and practice. Throughout the chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell effectively relies on logos--evidence from well-known figures and charts that show age similarities--to support his theory that it takes a particular window of time to offer someone the opportunity to practice for 10,000 hours to succeed at a skill. However, Gladwell ineffectively relies on repetition of evidence and failure to
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is the story of success. It is the story of what it really is that makes certain people successful. The book delves into the science of how exactly people climb their way up the latter of success in a way that is new to our society with an idea that is well supported and very logical.
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.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he portrays many stories of success. He writes about many situations that produced being successful. Jeannette Walls wrote a memoir, The Glass Castle, about her crazy upbring. In doing so, she wrote about her success story. Her story proves some of Gladwell’s theories.
Essentially, the topics Gladwell covered in this book include are, being at the right place at the right time, the 10,000-hour rule, timing, upbringing, and pursuing a meaningful career. Although all of these have been proven by Gladwell to be a major component of success, I do not agree with the idea of a particular upbringing will determine success. With this idea, Malcolm also includes that
Success is a concept that is constantly altered and has a different meaning from person to person. The stereotypical definition of success would be someone who has a high-paying job or is in the upper-class. Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers: The Story of Success, approaches the concept of success in a different and unique way. Gladwell discusses how opportunities, cultural legacy, and hard work all coincide with each other to produce real success. He uses mostly logic and multiple unrelated anecdotes to support and provide evidence for his statements. Gladwell's main argument is that although hard work and talent are essential for success, one’s given opportunities and cultural legacy is what really
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
The novel Outliers, aims to investigate the very thing we want for our family, our students, and ourselves. For most of our lives we have believed that with hard work, anyone can achieve success. That had to be the reason that poor immigrants like Andrew Carnegie and college dropouts like Bill Gates achieved unimaginable wealth. Most of us were taught that working harder than anyone else would lead to ultimate success.
In the general perspective, a majority of people have come to believe that success derives within the personality and motives of the individual. In contrast, Malcolm Gladwell alleges in his bestselling non-fiction book Outliers that success is spawn by their god-given advantages that may not be welcomed to others by fate.
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
Right away the readers get interested in learning what the then thousand hour rule is about. Gladwell reviews the lives of extremely successful people and how they have had success. There are many ways in which logos are used in Outliers. Gladwell viewed children in Berlin playing the violin and saw that kids having ten thousand hours of practice, were proven to be better at playing the violin, than kids with less than ten thousand hours of practice. He also took a look at Bill gates, which dropped out of college and started a very successful company, called Microsoft. Bill Gates had thousands of hours of practice in programming and other abilities learned through his short years at college. There are no shortcuts at becoming great; everything can only be achieved with lots of practice and hard work.
“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.