Analysis Of Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

Why do authors choose to write books and essays? In Why I Write, George Orwell claims that he writes because “he has the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive for”. Another literary work, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, describes how instant decision-making is as effective and complex as a cautiously thought-out decision. The author explains why people should be striving to make quick but advantageous decisions. Although the writer does not “push” for a change in society, he makes the deliberate choice to alter the way people think. He wants people to make spontaneous, but educated and controlled judgments. With this in mind, the audience can interpret his motives

Malcolm Gladwell hooks his readers and sparks their interest with each anecdote he craftily tells. However, their sole purpose is not to simply be interesting, they are the main source of his exemplification. With this rhetorical strategy, the writer can provoke his audience’s curiosity and interest in what he has to say. In the introduction of Blink, Gladwell refers to when “Nalini Ambady once gave students three ten-second videotapes of a teacher… and they found no difficulty at all coming up with a rating of the teacher’s effectiveness.” (12). With this short and comprehensible anecdote, he pushes the reader to begin to believe that snap judgments can be accurate, which can help Gladwell achieve his purpose in changing the way people think. Gladwell provides another anecdote from a police officer that was chasing down a teenage boy who was starting to grab for something in his pants, “‘Stop! Don’t move!’... As I was giving [the kid] commands, I drew my revolver… [the kid] came up with a chrome .25 auto.” (240). Gladwell analyzes how the officer could have easily shot the teenager since the officer recognized the grip of the handgun. Then, he instantly praises the officer by enthusiastically saying, “Is there a more beautiful example of a snap judgment?” (241). This anecdote provides a clear and effective example that convinces the audience that mastering the art of

One of the studies was a medical research that recorded conversations between surgeons and their patients and judges would infer whether or not those surgeons got sued for malpractice. The judges had very little information about the surgeons and “[they] could predict which surgeons got sued and which ones didn’t.” (42). Gladwell uses this study to help his credibility while appealing to his audience’s logic. With valid studies, Gladwell is able to further convince his audience that quick first impressions are practical and valid which compels them toward a new way of thinking, quick but knowledgeable. Gladwell then references another study that tested the obsolete method, collection of as much cardiac data as possible, in a hospital against Goldman’s algorithm, a new way of determining whether or not a patient is in critical cardiac condition in which “all you need is the evidence of the ECG, blood pressure, fluid in the lungs, and unstable angina.” (136-137). “The diagnosis and outcome of every patient treated under the two systems would be compared… and [after two years], the result wasn’t even close. Goldman’s rule won hands down…” (135). Gladwell analyzes how less information resulted in “70 percent better” (135) outcomes which subsequently encourages his audience to change our tedious thought process. He wants his readers to consider making intelligent and productive