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Yadira Riera
Mrs. Goodman
English 12R
3 November 2014
Practice Doesn’t Always Make Perfect/Not Much Experience Necessary The idea that practice makes perfect has been heard through the years of a majority of individual’s life. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he ultimately states that a specific number of hours someone needs to practice before they can become successful. Gladwell is not completely wrong; however, his strong claim and evidences for the 10,000 hour rule can be proven false. Many researchers have looked into lives of successful people and people who aren’t as successful. Among their research they have also conducted surveys giving them a chance to compare the hours of practice between individuals. Through this it is concluded
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Within his book he uses results from a study that surveyed a group of violinist from a music schools. The study concluded that the violinist who practiced for 10,000 hours or more would play professionally, and the violinist who only had 5,000 hours of practice would become school music teachers. Malcolm Gladwell also uses hockey players as a source of evidence stating that the younger they start playing with the all-star teams the more practices they will gain adding up to the minimum of 10,000 hours that they need to become successful and play in professional level. To sum up his claim of 10,000 hours he states “And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder,” (39) meaning that those who are at the highest point of success are there because they have practiced harder to get there than anyone else around them. However looking back to what Sonia Alleyne wrote about Frans Johnson’s book, areas such as music and sports are areas where rules never change. Thus deliberate practice and reaching the magical number of 10,000 hours would make a violinist or hockey player successful. Along with the result of David Z. Hambrick’s study even if 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is the ideal goal of individuals trying to reach the highest point of success, consideration must be taken that there are some individuals who have innate talent and skill with the ability to reach this point of success requiring less deliberate
I found Gladwell’s first chapter of Outliers entitled “The Matthew Effect” to be both interesting, confusing, and perhaps somewhat lopsided. Based on Matthew 25:2, Gladwell simply explains, “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given to the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.” (Gladwell 2008, pg. 30) The Matthew Effect seems to extend special advantages and opportunities to some simply based on their date of birth.
Malcolm Gladwell, in the nonfiction book Outliers, claims that success stems from where you come from, and to find that you must look beyond the individual. Malcolm Gladwell develops and supports his claim by defining an outlier, then providing an example of how Stewart Wolf looked beyond the individual, and finally by giving the purpose of the book Outliers as a whole. Gladwell’s purpose is to explain the extenuating circumstances that allowed one group of people to become outliers in order to inform readers on how to be successful. The author writes in a serious and factual tone for the average person in society of both genders and all ethnicities who wants to become successful in life.
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that there is no such thing as a self-made man, and that success is only the result of a person’s circumstances. However, throughout the novel Gladwell points out that your circumstances and opportunities only help you become successful if you are willing to take advantage of them and work hard. From a twelve year old living in the Bronx, to those who were born at just the right time to become millionaires, one thing is the same throughout; these people because successful because they seized the opportunities they were given. The advantages and opportunities that came from their circumstances would not be important if they had not grasped them. Every successful man is self made, because he has seized the
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.
What is the 10,000 hour rule? Malcom Gladwell uses this rule to help explain that success in any field one has to commit to practicing one specific task for a total of 10,000 hours. Gladwell uses such examples as Bill Gates and The Beatles and explains that 20 hours a week for ten years will bring a person to this exalted number. The argument is that practice makes perfect. But one must have dedicated everything to improve that desired skill for it to work. He uses the rule as a basis to explain “innate ability has less to do with success than the combination of early environment exposure and years of practice” (Graydon, 1). Were at the end of his observation it would be a fine, even optimistic, argument. Malcom’s biased measure of 'success' is more or less safely constrained to practiced skills of the musical or hand-eye co-ordination like working with computers in which he explains with Gates and Jobs. He also admits genetics, exposure, practice, and random luck may all play a confounding role and does not emphasize the rule how easily it translates to a business professiona...
Gladwell gives differing definitions of intelligence. Yet his definition of success is singular—"worldly" success in terms of wealth, power, and fame. Are there also differing definitions of success that Gladwell doesn't consider? If so, what are they, and what does it take to achieve those versions of success? What is your definition of success, and how does it compare to Gladwell’s? Has your definition of success changed at all?
Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers argues that one, with enough hard work and assertion, can reshape the world to their desires. While this assertion may appear true for some demographics, there are various qualities that predispose one to success and opportunity. For many, success is a matter of luck, simply being born in the right generation or having a stronger cultural legacy, as highlighted in Gladwell’s book. One cannot reshape the world with hard work and assertion alone, they must also be predisposed to success through their childhood and their ancestry.
“People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't”(Gladwell 18).
What brings you to success? Is it the 10,000 hours of practice? My opinion is it all depends on the situation as in what you’re trying to be successful. So personally I kind of agree with this 10,000 hour theory. What is the 10,000 hour rule? It’s stated in the book by Malcolm Gladwell, if you practice for 10,000 hours then you will become successful in whatever you were practicing in or for. To me 10,000 hours of practice all the depends, because mentally you have to be motivated. The three correlations of success in this book that I had found was relating to IQ, birth year, and the theory of the 10,000 hour rule. They say this all has something to do with one 's success.
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
What would happen if our world today was monotonous, sorrowful, and grey? What if no one was here to form new creations, and think of bold ideas? Would triumph have a definition? Would there be outliers in our world today? We are constantly thinking, always generating new ideas and forming new thoughts. People even proceed by creating inventions, and building objects no one would of thought would be made today. But, what we don’t perceive is how they became successful and how they took advantage of the moment that was given to them. In the novel, Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, the author explains that an outlier is one who is given an opportunity and knows how to take advantage. He believes that in order for a person to be successful they need at least ten thousand hours of hard work and effort in order to succeed at a skill. It is clear to me that like Malcolm Gladwell, I believe
The ten thousand hour rule is oftentimes linked to success. The more practice a person has the better they will get at the task at hand. Throughout history it can be seen that people such as Bill Gates and The Beatles success came from the ten thousand hour rule as well as many other athletes, musicians and geniuses. Studies show that the most successful of musicians, athletes, mathematicians, etc. come from ten thousand hours of practice. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do which makes you good” (Gladwell 42). This quote breaks down the ten thousand hour rule, stating that the more practice oneself has the better oneself will be. This thought starts at a young age and depending on resources and opportunity comes to be right.
In order to be successful, failure is inevitable. When one fails, it is essential for them to practice tremendous hours to develop their skills and master their craft. In beginning of the book, Gladwell explains “The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything” (40). Messi was certainly not the best player in the world as he made a debut in the spanish league but becoming professional at the age of
Over the past four years I have asked myself, how do great chess players really become great? Malcom Gladwell's“Outliers”responded with the answer: the 10,000 hour rule. As a chess player, I am reminded that even Bobby Fisher needed a preparation period of nine years. Unfortunately I only had four because my interests in physics and math courses have become more prominent. It appears the 10,000 hour is a necessary condition for exceptional performance in many fields, however, I don't believe it's sufficient. My chess experience, if nothing else, has taught me that ...
What is it that can drive a single individual to work harder than their fellow members, and how does they benefit from working harder? When the thought of how a hard working individual is different from the normal person in society, a few thing can be thought. Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book, Outliers, that “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires,” (Gladwell 151). This phrase made me questions previous parts of the book, but he had shown subtle hints of this in the early sections of the book where luck seemed to determine everything. Most of the audience have experienced the affects gained from working hard, or at least have heard about them. These examples