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Rhetorical strategies in gladwells outliers
How does malcolm gladwell use the rhetorical situation
Rhetorical strategies in gladwells outliers
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The Beatles, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, professional hockey players, and solo violinists all have one thing in common. Malcolm Gladwell, author of “Outliers”, is able to effectively link these different parties together though his “10,000 Hour Rule”. Gladwell states that, “practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing that makes you good” (42). Using rhetorical devices, Gladwell effectively conveys how overall success can be spotted by historical, recurring patterns or events. Malcolm Gladwell has supported himself as a reputable author as well. Using supported statistics, easily illustrated patterns, and well known examples, Gladwell fulfills the logos appeal. Also, due to his very successful works “The Boiling Point” and “Blink”, Gladwell shows his credibility as an author. Gladwell’s main purpose is to teach his audience the pattern of success, and why some people did or did not succeed. This audience is consisted of those who want to succeed, and want to create as many possibilities to reach their goal. Their main values are gaining success for themselves. Another possible audience is a group who enjoys statistics and patterns. These patterns show that around 10,000 of practice in an activity, the person becomes very proficient in that activity. Citing the Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates as his examples, Gladwell shows that practice can make perfect. Malcolm Gladwell states that to reach a level of expertise, one must practice that activity for 10,000 hours. Using rhetorical devices, tone, and logos, Gladwell efficiently supports his claim of the 10,000 hour rule.
Gladwell’s style of writing begins with explaining or presenting an example of someone with success in a field. He then quickly refutes the reader’...
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...a well defended argument, and was able to reinforce it well with factual evidence, rhetorical devices, and tone.
Gladwell effectively uses rhetorical devices, tone, and factual evidence to support his claim of the 10,000 hour rule. Using rhetorical devices such as parallelism, facts and statistics (logos), and style of writing, Gladwell reinforces his idea of practice. Malcolm Gladwell uses his evidence to make a reader truly think about those who are successful as being hard workers, not just “lucky”. He illustrates how many well-known experts became legends in their field. This not only shows how software moguls and tycoons became wealthy or successful, but how the reader can as well: by following the old piece of advice “practice makes perfect”.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. ________Print
Through the accompaniment of rhetorical devices and pathos, one can strengthen an argument to the point where others see no other option. When spoken at the right occasions and with enough of supporting evidence, an argument will intrigue the audience and make people find the argument logical and appealing. Patrick Henry made his speech less than a month before the Revolutionary War came to pass. Thomas Paine commenced a series of articles when the call for men to fight was urgent. When someone makes an argument, even the smallest detail counts.
Gladwell, Malcolm. “The 10,000-Hour Rule.” Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown, 2008. 35-55. Print.
Malcolm Gladwell describes a sure fire way to become an expert in any subject in chapter two of Outliers. He explains that in order to be successful you must work for ten thousand hours. Gladwell is a non-fiction writer who collects research data and interprets it as guidelines to being successful. In the book Outliers he examines dozens of successful people and analyzes their rise to fame and success. His purpose is to identify misconceptions about how to be successful and to praise outliers for beating the odds. His work teaches us how outliers rise against the odds and how to identify their extraordinary luck, opportunity and hard work. His writing enlightens the average reader on how a successful person rose to the occasion and the different factors in their lives that helped them do so. The intended audience is anyone interested in discovering just how much work it has taken in the past to be the best of the best and how to apply oneself. In chapter two of Outliers Gladwell leads us through the lives of computer programmer Bill Joy, world-class violinists, musical genius Amadeus Mozart, chess grandmasters of the twenty first century, internationally popular UK pop band “The Beatles,” and computer genius and former richest man in the world, Bill Gates. Gladwell’s attempt to persuade readers of the ten thousand hour rule is successful because of his use of exemplum, logos and rhetorical question.
...s an extremely good job at clarifying his arguments through a use of extreme detail and primary source documents.
This essay is distinctly about how life experiences alter the way in which your writings travel. The ups and downs of life will determine the perspective you see of your life, in turn, determining how you feel or express yourself. Orwell states, “his subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in – at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own” (265). This statement proves how writing develops with age and how through different time periods, has evolved. Orwell's essay focuses on the indirect wants.
Gladwell uses a wide variety of different examples that range from marriages to Law enforcement and everywhere in between. He seeks to revolutionize the way we attack problems
Making a good and persuasive argument is very much an acquired skill. It requires much practice and perfecting. It takes more than just having passion and making good points. Just because a person is passionate about the topic or has supporting details does not mean they can make a successful argument. Much more thought and skill is required. Gordon Adams, in his letter to the Arizona State University standards committee, demonstrates this quite well. Gordon Adams writes a passionate argument, yet his argument lacks several critical aspects.
...heir 10,000 hours of practice to become successful in their passion, therefore making his writing effective. Gladwell provides information to his audience that success is achieved by many factors and some of these factors they can control, such as the amount of hours they practice. His writing style provides hope for the future in young generations who may not know how to go about achieving success in their desired area. Gladwell's writing is truly timeless in a sense that in two hundred years from now, younger generations will be able to read his writing about the 10,000 hour rule and it will still have the same effect in giving them hope of becoming future outliers.
His anecdotes presented in the article are appropriate in terms of his subject and claims. The author responds back to the naysayers by saying that people only look at the test scores earned in school, but not the actual talent. He says, “Our culture- in Cartesian fashion- separates the body from the mind, so that, for example we assume that the use of tool does not involve abstraction. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and number on IQ tests. And we employ social biases pertaining to a person’s place on the occupational ladder” (279). The author says that instead of looking at people’s talent we judge them by their grades in school or their IQ score, and we also employ them based on these numbers. People learn more each time they perform a task. He talks about blue collared individuals developing multi-tasking and creativity skills as they perform the task they are asked to
Thomas, Cathy Booth. "The Push To Be Perfect." Time International (Canada Edition) 166.6 (2005): 44. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Gladwell wrote nine chapters, each with an unique story and lesson behind it and each will try to make the reader believe towards his belief of why someone is “successful”. In Gladwell’s very first chapter of the novel, he goes into hockey players and what gave many of the players in the league today a head start over their competition. A huge percentage of players in league are born in the first four months(Jan.,Feb.,March,and April) of the year and only a small percentage are born
In the book, groups of successful people are broken down and Gladwell compares their individual characteristics to see if there are any abnormal trends. He starts with talking about how the chance birthdates of a large number of professiona...
Outliers-The Story of Success is a sociological, and psychological non-fiction book, which discusses success, and the driving reasons behind why some people are significantly more successful than others. Malcolm Gladwell explains this by dividing the book into two parts, opportunity and legacy. Opportunity discusses how select people are fortunate enough to be born between the months of January through March, and also includes the idea that those who are already successful will have more opportunities to improve and become even more successful. The 10,000-hour rule proves the idea that in order to become successful in a certain skill, one must have practiced that skill for at least 10,000 hours. In addition to the 10,000-hour rule, timing is also a major component that implies being in the right place at the right time, which brings the author to discuss Bill Gates who was born during the time where programming and computer technology was emerging, therefore sparking his interest in computers, later bringing him to create Microsoft. Another point Gladwell brings forth is the notion of one’s upbringing, race, and ethnicity can be a factor behind their success. And lastly, pursuing meaningful work will cause one to continue working with their skill and not give up. Legacy is a collection of examples that support the idea: values are passed down from generation to generation, which may cause a certain group of people to be more persistent in a skill, or occupation.
If people work hard, focus, and are disciplined, they will succeed in the future. This has become a universal idea taught by parents, teachers, and peers. People have passed down this idea to the younger generations and they chose to live by this moral that makes sense. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell debunks the universal idea that working hard will allow people to play hard and get further in life. Gladwell eliminates the traditional ideas of success by showing that opportunities, family background, and being born at the “right” time are actually what lead to success.
The first characteristic needed to excel as an outlier is innate talent. In order to truly excel in anything, one must have the talent to foster success. Gladwell concedes that talent and hard work are factors in success. Human achievements, he argues, demand ability and talent, disciplined by at least 10,000 hours of practice. Having talent alone does not make one successful. Having the fortitude to take advantage of opportunities afforded to you, and the determination to practice for as long as it takes to master your craft is what leads to true success.