Analysis Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

A Closer Look into Outliers by way of Chapter Two

To those of you that are willing to open your minds and consider the possibilities of new and different concepts about the way our society’s views successful people and the reasons behind their success. I invite you to accompany me, as I take a closer look into Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers and more specifically reviewing and analyzing the reasoning behind the logical, ethical, and emotional examples used by Gladwell in chapter two. While also acknowledging that the selected examples support the concept presented in the chapter regarding success and clearly show that Gladwell has chosen to rely on a more logical approach for his argument. However, he still uses an ethical and emotional aspect

For example, he uses the reputation of well-known individuals like Bill Joy and the Beatles to appeal to his audience. By doing this Gladwell succeeds in gaining the audiences trust because of the credibility and status that these individuals have in our society. For instance, Gladwell first presents the details of exactly how successful Bill Joy’s is and also choices to point out that “among Silicon Valley insiders, Joy is spoken of with as much awe as someone like Bill Gates of Microsoft.” (Gladwell, 38) He does this in order to reach out to those that don’t have a profound knowledge of programing, so that those readers realize how important Bill Joy is to our society. Gladwell then moves on to explain that Joy’s success is actually a result of one extraordinary opportunity after another. This helps Gladwell prove to the audience that Joy’s success was only possible because of the opportunities that allowed him to gain the ten thousand hours of practice time needed in order to be successful (47). Another example of this indirect approach is found on page 47, when Gladwell discusses the Beatles and describes them as “one of the most famous rock bands every.” By using this statement he stressing how important and successful this musical group is to the public. Gladwell then tells their story of success and explains how “the Hamburg Crucible is one of the things that set the Beatles apart” (50) because it allowed them the opportunity to practice. Yet again, continuing to use others peoples reputation to gain the trust of the audience and using this trust to prove how essential ten thousand hours of practice time is to