I like Gladwell, despite his tendency to be iconoclastic for its own sake, and that tendency was not on display in this first (of ten, allegedly) podcasts that seek to explore forgotten or misremembered moments in history.
This one uses the example of The Roll Call by Elizabeth Thompson (later Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler) to illustrate moral licensing, where one virtuous act is used to justify future less virtuous acts. In this case, displaying Thompson's painting gave cover to the Royal Academy (the gatekeepers for art in 19th Century England) to refuse her and any other women admission to their ranks for another six decades.
Gladwell then pivots to the similar case of Julia Gillard, the first female Prime Minister of Australia, and
Even when discussing someone like Bill Gates he even solidifies it farther with quotes from apparent experts of that area or people that were close to them such as '"They learned not only stamina. They had to learn an enormous amount of numbers' said the biographer of the Beatles. Quotes like this are extremely powerful as it by someone who wrote a Biography of them and so since he wrote that it is extremely likely that he knows a lot about them. The overall effect of him doing this is that he feels extremely credible as he is backed up by experts. Other than the indirect presentation of Ethos there is also some very obvious Ethos as he is in no need for further credentials to write this as he was a reporter for the Washington Post and then later for the New Yorker magazine. Of current, he still works there. He has also won a national magazine award. Aside from that in the actual writing there is no grammatical areas or run on sentences as well as proper punctuation. This is one of the things where one doesn't notice it until it is missing. On the Logos aspect of his paper, Gladwell employs this when he is talking about amazing events that occurred to people such as the Beatles or Mozart under "uncontrollable
Gladwell utilizes
Many people may say that this book is full of a bunch of crap. They may say that Gladwell takes
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
Throughout the book, cherry-picking information is one of the most obvious problems, Gladwell seems to only use information
In summing up Gladwell’s argument, the lesson he forwards is very simple. If we continue to believe in the myth of the “self-made” individual, we will continually seek out some strange gifted individual that never existed. In order to be more effective as a society or better stated, a world community,
Not only does he uses the work of various other people to enhance his point, he adds multiple examples. He addresses the success of people such as Bill Gates and the Beatles and talks about how they became outliers while also using other examples to solidify his argument. While talking about Bill Gates and the Beatles, Gladwell emphasizes that they got the opportunity to get better, that “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” (42) Adding points such as that are what give him that
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.
Gladwell uses strong anecdotes and studies to prove all the claims he presents throughout his book. He explains he evidence well and ties everything back to the point he is trying to prove. This helps further understand Gladwell’s argument. But, even though Gladwell uses multiple anecdotes and studies to support his claims, the problem that is faced is that he merely suggests his sources are correct but never
To start with, Gladwell uses ethos, an appeal to ethics, as a device to effectively explain how
In order to fully comprehend the significance of dishonesty throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, it is important to understand just how strict the Victorian
Furthermore, irrespective of Alice’s standpoint on the British legal system, it is her annoyance in being kept waiting a matter of minutes that provides the ensuing events to take place and can be argued that she is responsible for the situation she puts herself into, causing a disagreement between herself and Frank to leave with another man, the artist and her “assaulter”.
When it comes to schemes employed in the introduction of Gladwell's book, rhetorical questions take the cake. Upon countless instances, Gladwell used this rhetorical device to force the reader into staying engaged and seeing all sides of his argument. As mentioned earlier, the first subsection introduced an extensive story about the Getty museum's purchase of a forged Greek statue. In order to keep focused on the purpose of the novel Gladwell placed well-spaced out questions, asking the reader “ Who was right?” and “Why ... did the museum buy [the statue] in the first place?”, compelling one to pause and reevaluate how Gladwell’s notion, was in fact possible (Gladwell 7,14). To further excitement and engagement in his message, Gladwell prompts the reader with questions that poke at what the world could be like if humans put more trust in their instincts and “stopped scanning the horizon with our binoculars and began instead examining our own decision making and behavior through the most powerful of microscopes” (Gladwell 16). Open ended questions such as these give the reader a broader understanding of what Gladwell’s aspirations for the book were, allowing them to better comprehend his newfound ideas.
As Gladwell conducts his argument, he writes with confidence and authority, which expresses his passion and knowledge about the subject. Gladwell’s poise throughout the essay, combined with his resume, establishes his credibility and constructs a rhetorically effective argument. Being a best-selling author as well as a professional
Gladwell carefully constructs his argument by offering the real life story of Bernie Goetz. Gladwell uses this example in order to provide a