Ayomide Awodu
Professor Zearfoss
Composition I
2 April 2016
The 10,000 Hours Rule: Fact or Fiction
While it is common knowledge that practice and dedication play a huge role in a person’s eventual success, Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling non-fiction book, takes this one step further by arguing that one cannot be a master in one’s field without first practicing for a specific amount of time. He subsequently provides different stories and anecdotes to support his theory. While, the idea of extended practice improving skills and playing a big role in the achievement of success has some merit, Gladwell’s argument that 10,000 hours is the minimum requirement for excellence in any field is erroneous as he does not include compelling research,
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The author cites Mozart, The Beatles, Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and world-class violinists and attributes their success to the fact that they accomplished the minimum level or 10,000 hours of practice in their respective areas of interest. Gladwell mentions the earlier research conducted by Daniel Levitin and K. Anders Ericsson in an attempt to prove that his theory is applicable to all fields. K. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University and whose study Gladwell based his 10,000 rule disagrees. He emphasizes that not all practice is applicable; time spent has to be deliberate and focused on improvement. Examples Gladwell gave in his book such as programming and playing ice hockey matches simply do not count. “It’s not a matter of simply taking part in an activity. Sports people have other considerations, for instance, there are physical limits on how much dedicated practice is possible”. By referencing earlier studies involving “composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists…” (Gladwell 40) Gladwell attempts to erroneously prove that the 10,000 hour rule is applicable in every area of …show more content…
Though many people would like to believe otherwise, science has proven that not every individual is equal in terms of ability. Just like an individual might have a genetic predisposition for alcoholism or addiction, another individual would be more likely to excel in sports or in the arts simply because of key traits he inherited from his parents. Psychologist Miriam Mosing studied more than 10,000 twins and had them estimate the amount of time they had devoted to music practice and complete tests of basic music abilities. It was discovered that although the music abilities were influenced by genes (38 percent, on average), there was no evidence they were influenced by practice. For a pair of identical twins, the twin who practiced music more did not do better on the tests than the twin who practiced less. Biologist Michael Lombardo and psychologist Robert Deane examined the biographies of male and female Olympic sprinters such as Jesse Owens, Marion Jones, and Usain Bolt, and found that, in all cases, they were exceptional compared with their competitors from the very start of their sprinting careers before they had accumulated much more practice than their peers. The results of these studies indicate that while practice does matter, there are limits on its improvement power. People are not created equal
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell expresses his theory of success through the 10,000 hour rule that is used to associate practice with success and achieving certain goals. He strives to influence the audience of his point of view and assumptions of successful people throughout the history of the world. Gladwell relates to various historical figures and people of well known talent and intelligence. As the author, Malcolm Gladwell believes to be very knowledgeable, influential throughout the novel. Although he provides interesting facts and statistics to his piece, Gladwell is unable to establish credibility to this information. During college and high school, he did not attain high grades that altered his decision to engage in advertising. After being rejected numerous times, he was later accepted to a journalism position. His insufficient experience and skills contributes to his low credibility and reliability. Gladwell aims to persuade or influence the audience of the importance of practice to fulfill success by also trying to teach the reader new skills. He reaches out to society to capture his inspiring discoveries including young adults in particular who are aspiring to grasp their desired dreams. He introduces the 10,000 hour rule as a goal to reach around the age of twenty or higher. Gladwell compares the lives of professional hockey players, Bill Gates, the Beatles, and Mozart to display their achievements in their later lives due to the amount of experience and practice they were able to endure. He claims that with exactly 10,000 hours of practice, expert level will be sustained in any given skill. Although Gladwell expresses his knowledge and theories of success through devices that exemplify logos and repetition of the 10,00...
Malcolm Gladwell is a canadian-english journalist, speaker, and bestselling author. In his bestselling book “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell discusses success and what patterns correlate with it. He states that how much time you put into a certain activity, specifically 10,000 hours, can put you in a elite level of proficiency. This in turn can give someone the tools to allow them the ability to be successful. Using historical citations, patterns, and real life examples, Gladwell forms his 10,000 hour rule. Due to his knowledgeable yet calm tone Gladwell seems to show credibility. His intended audience could be people who enjoy statistics or people who want to be successful and find possible ways to do so. Gladwell uses a logical appeal to show the patterns he has found through his studies of success. He supports his claim with overwhelming statistics which back it. He also uses similes to help better understand how he can relate the patterns he has found for the elite in a certain activity to other things. Foil is probably Gladwell's best means of convincing the reader to his thesis of the 10,000 hour rule. He uses Foil to compare success and we define to legends such as Bill Gates The Beatles and Bill Joy. Overall Gladwell uses Logos, similes, and foils to support his claim of the 10,000 hour rule.
Epstein's Sport Genes is more about how a boy named Thomas was born with a bigger Achilles tendon and Epstein thinks that the tendon does all of the work(Epstein,7). As you can see theses both are very complex option. However, even over all this Gladwell does provide more evidence. In Outliers Gladwell states that there were three classes and each one of them practiced different hours, and they saw a real change(Gladwell,12). The one that seemed to practiced more the more they accelerated in class and better they got at playing violin. Forthwith, this is factual evidence from a real-life story which proves practice makes it possible to actually improve your performance. In Sport Gene it talks about a boy named Thomas which was born with an enhanced achilleas tendon which allowed him to jump higher than most of the team(Epstein,6). He went on to compete, barley winning coming close to second although a trained jumper about beat him. This proves that training can allow you to surpass a prodigy because if he trained a little more he would have been able to surpass a person like
Who was a great well known activist in the past ? Militant is the best way to describe Malcolm as a person: Civil rights activist and Islamic preacher, he was often called the prince of Islam. As a comparison in the present world today Jay-z earned his way to go under as activist. Jay-z donated to a number of foundations that needed help from, and also countries around the world too. The common thread between the two are, the both went through tribulations to help their country in a lot ways.
Malcolm X was born on 1925 in Ohama, Nebraska. He was born in a big family. His father, Earl little was a Christian. Malcolm X grew up as the son of the blacks who face discrimination and pressure from the whites. Malcolm X left school early and find work in New York. He worked as a waiter in Harlem. His life was tough. He even sells drugs to and become addicted to it. He later becomes robbers. He was arrested and jailed in 1946.
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...
It is very clear that college athletes are very devoted and committed adults. It is also very easy to see that these young adults are swamped with practice and game schedules. Many people don’t realize exactly how much time is devoted to practices. An article by O'Shaughnessy (2011) provides a run down of how much time each athlete puts into different sports. Division I baseball players spend 42.1 hours a week practicing on the field.(O'Shaughnessy, 2011) Divi...
Both Nicholas Carr and Malcolm Gladwell debated how the Internet has affected humankind in both positive and negative ways. Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker and the author of Small Change:Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted. Nicholas Carr is a writer who has formerly written for the New York Times, The Guardian etc, he also wrote Is Google Making Us Stupid? Gladwell’s and Carr’s essays identifies how the internet has a damaging effect on people.
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
In addition, these examples of Kobe Bryant’s Hard work and dedication also relates back to Malcom Gladwell’s book “Outliers”. One of the reasons why it relates back to Outliers is because one of Gladwell’s keys to success involves both hard work and dedication. The 10,000-hour rule.It is clear to see that a huge contributor to Kobe Bryant’s success in the NBA was the amount of hard work and dedication he put towards basketball. However, it wasn’t the only thing that lead to his success in the
In Asia, people believe all the hard work will lead to profits through the experience of growing rice paddies. According to the writer, this argument is not limited to the rice paddies but continues over the experiment of the math tests. For example, Gladwell introduces a story of Renee. Renee is Alan Schoenfeld’s, a math professor at Berkeley, student. He considers Renee different. When Renee meets a problem she does not know, she will not stop until she is absolutely sure she has it right. Renee’s studying spirit helps her to succeed during studying. It is based on a function of persistence and doggedness. However, under the US education system, students are not good at focusing on one thing. Gladwell ends by noting the result of the test called TIMSS, the difference between how Asian and American students learn math is the emphasis on effort and hard work. This doggedness is not
In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell analyzes numerous success stories in an attempt to understand the circumstances that make certain individuals particularly exceptional. Through his analysis, Gladwell strives to find an explanation for why some people succeed, while others, despite their persistent efforts, do not. He questions the validity of conventional attitudes towards accomplished figures—that these figures simply rise to fame as a result of sheer talent and ambition—and points out that the superficial summaries leave out crucial details. As Gladwell studies the lives of these “outliers,” from piano virtuosos to software moguls, he indicates that their success stemmed from a variety of components, including fortunate
He uses an example of Bill Joy and highlights how he began to start his passion at a really early age. He then moves on to a group of musician and classified them into three groups, noting that the best of the groups started practicing their instrument at the age of 5 and consistently practiced until present day. It was concluded that in order to becomes master or succeed in what they are doing, the magic number for true expertise is ten thousand hours. He comes to the statement that distinguishes one person from the next is how hard they work. People at the top don’t work harder or much harder than everyone else, they work much much harder. He mentions that practice isn’t something you do once and you’re good, but it’s the thing that makes you good. He goes on to describe the stories of other prodigies or well known people and connects them with having over ten thousand hours of practice and experience in their specific
Source: "Practice Makes Perfect? Not so Much." MSUToday. Zach Hambrick, Andy Henion, 20 May 2013. Web. 04 May 2014. .
“I knew this was bliss, knew it at the time.” These words of Eudora Welty, although expressing her feeling from devouring book after book, can also be applied to my life. While not relating to my literacy, Welty’s lexis nonetheless conveys my own feelings after learning the significance of hard work. I’ve put excess effort in performing the roles of a student, an athlete, and a Christian. Success and growth in each component of my life has taught me the value and necessity of a strong work ethic.