TOW #1 - "Outliers: The Story of Success"

This week I read a large portion of my IRB, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Outliers was Gladwell's third published book (after Tipping Point and Blink) and is considered by many his best work. Similar to his other novels, this book is classified under the genre of "Sociology-Non Fiction". Gladwell’s writing’s focus particularly in areas of sociology and psychology, topics used in his column in The New Yorker as well. The premise of Outliers is how every person who is a "success" earns this by a commonly seen factor. Contrary to the title, Gladwell tries to persuade his audience through numerous studies how there are no true "outliers" to this circumstance.

His audience, the average member of society who has a preconceived notion on how to be successful, is presented this fact in forms of different rhetorical device. Logos is an example of which used by Gladwell. By having distinctive statistics to back his purpose up, Gladwell makes a more reliable testimony. For instance, he cites a study done by Anders Ericsson, a Swedish professor of psychology, who found established the '10,000 hour' rule. In this theory, it is proven that if one practices something for the duration of 10,000 hours, they will achieve expertise on this activity. Two prime cases of this theme are Bill Gates and the Beetles. Both are validation that after 10,000 hours of performing a skill, for Gates, computer programing and for the Beetles, rehearsing, one can master it. By using two highly well-known and appreciated 'successes', Gladwell effects his audience in having more confidence in his teachings. This is because the audience can better visualize these individual’s achievements and therefore, can better understand the time one must allot to be on that level of success.

As mentioned before, Gladwell’s purpose in writing this text is to argue against the spectacle that outliers exist when it comes to success. So far, I think the author has done well with this, although I cannot say if he completely accomplished his purpose yet. He has not mentioned any counter ideas that are too far outside of the box of how someone achieved success. In other words, I am curious to see if Gladwell will mention a bigger ‘phenomenon’ of success and be able to refute this.