Malcolm Gladwell´s Outliers Rhetorical Analysis

The popular saying “practice makes perfect” has been used for many years encouraging younger generations to strive for success in whatever area they wish to excel in. Success is something everybody in society strides for but some do not know how it is achieved. However, there are many people throughout history who are known for achieving success in many areas. Malcolm Gladwell, a best selling author and speaker, identifies these people as being outliers. Gladwell identifies the word “outlier” in his story Outliers as “a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.” Although Malcolm Gladwell does not establish credibility for himself in his novel, his targeted audience of a younger inexperienced generation feel the need to be informed by his detailed theories about becoming successful and eventually becoming an outlier. Although the reality of becoming successful can depend on instances one can not control, Gladwell tells his readers there is a great portion they can control through his theory, the 10,000 hour rule. He does this by using well presented logical persuasive appeals and interesting rhetorical devices such as: onomatopeias, exposition, and argumentation.

Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule tells his readers that they are more likely to become successful by accomplishing 10,000 hours of practice with whatever they wish to be successful in. He starts off using an example with a group of violin players. The violin players that achieved the closest to 10,000 hours of practice were the more advanced musicians in the program compared to the other groups that did not practice as much. This would be an example of an effective logical appeal because of the clear contrast shown between the groups w...

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...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.

Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. Print.

“Complexity and the Ten-Thousand-Hour-Rule.” The New Yorker. N.p, n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.