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Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

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Outliers is the “story of success.” This highly acclaimed book, by Malcolm Gladwell, discusses a wide variety of success stories and what factors played into those achievements. Although Gladwell states scientific research, he uses a journalistic approach to convey his concepts. This approach attempts using convincing words and phrases to draw in the reader. The book is called Outliers, since Gladwell is describing the outliers in life who excel and become successful. Throughout the book though, he makes generalized statements and does not consider that people may lie outside the groups he makes. He does not consider all the outliers.
“Outliers” do not just exist with intelligence, they also exist in social classes and the norms associated with them. In “The Trouble with Geniuses, …show more content…

In “The Matthew Effect,” Gladwell explains that in sports, as well as education, children born closer to the cutoff date are more likely to succeed (Gladwell 15). He states that in education, the teachers “are confusing maturity with ability,” so they put the older kids in the higher levels (Gladwell 29). While there is a difference in the level of development between children’s brains at just five years old, that does not prove that the teachers are selecting the students based on their birthdays. For example, I was born on April 17th, almost the end of the school year, but I was chosen for the gifted program from the start. On the other hand, my sister was born on December 7th, giving her a four-month head start, but she didn’t get into gifted until second grade. Even if a child does not get put into the gifted program at age five, he or she has the opportunity to get admitted later on. Just because a child is several months younger than his or her peers does not mean that he or she is less intelligent. Children develop at different rates, so having several months head start could mean

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Malcolm Gladwell 's Outliers: The Hence of Attaining challenges assumptions around congenital skill and unaffected-indigenous faculty. Flick flip a succession of sufficient examples, Gladwell explains out of doors these know-how by attributing them to reference, arsis , victim, distance, allay, and round. In alternative book, those naturally pain, major family we admire—Mozart, Act Gates, the Beatles—weren 't born adjacent to natural ability. In preference to, they had the pertinent history, were in the proper assignation at the fit grow older, and through 10,000 noontime of fixed act and a not many inadvertent opportunities, durable end.

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“There’s no reason that the zip code you’re born into should determine your success or failure in school.” Whoever has said this quote, is completely correct. Children have a more innocent outlook on life. They do not yet know the difference between a good or bad education, and do not know they’ve been set up for failure. The documentary, Waiting For Superman, revolves around children who were born into an insufficient education zone with parents who can’t resolve the issue for various reasons.

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The argument developed in Chapter 3 and 4 of the Outliers contends that IQ beyond a point is not a determining factor in success. Gladwell implies that a higher IQ to a certain extent is optimal but once a defined threshold has been achieved, having greater intelligence provides limited or possibly no additional benefits in the attainment of success. An analogy in the book that is used to convince us that opportunity matters more that talent is an example from the studies of Annette Lareau comprised of a group of third graders residing in lower and middle/upper income households. Her studies showed that the middle/upper class students were provided opportunities to cultivate their talent/abilities in a meaningful way along with support and

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593 Words | 3 Pages

Pod Cast Malcom Gladwell is author of Outliers The story of success. Gladwell speaks on success how circumstances may out come your success but that may not be that case. Tony Robbins a motivational speaker, author, and philanthropist. Robbins doesn’t see circumstances as a determined factor.

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180 Words | 1 Pages

In the article, Threshold of Violence, by the New Yorker Magazine authored by Malcolm Gladwell, he argues that the Granovetter theory thoroughly describes why school shooters hardly fit any kind of pattern. Although he uses several statistics and resources, Gladwell is not fully effective in proving his claim because he limits his ideas to thresholds, he does not use enough ethos, and he contradicts himself several times. One can easily debate that this claim does not provide enough evidence. Ultimately, his claim does not persuade the reader that the Granovetter model is not effective. uses examples such as: Evan Ramsey, Kip Kinkel, Eric Harris, and John Ladue to prove his point.

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1751 Words | 8 Pages

My understanding of the “American Dream” is a concept of migrating to the United States, starting from scratch, and becoming rich and successful by working hard. But after reading Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell change my perspective of the “American Dream” by providing the idea of luck and opportunity playing a major factor in one 's success. Almost all the success story of the immigrant in the book was by opportunity because of birth, chance by cultural background and circumstances. Gladwell changed my view of how the “American Dream” is accomplished, not solely by hard work, but luck and opportunity are what factor into someone accomplishing the “American Dream”. Reading Outliers, the main thesis or central premise of Gladwell on why some people

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910 Words | 4 Pages

In Gerald Graff 's essay “Hidden Intellectualism” starts of by talking about the stereotype of being so called “street smart” and and being “book smart” and how in school when you see someone who is street smart but doesn’t do go in school get a bad wrap. People look at them as a waste because they can’t apply there intelligences that they have and use it towards school, so people view them as not the right kind of smart because they are not a A student in school. Graff then goes on to say that maybe it is not the students that are the problem with how they do in school but maybe it is the school that have missed or overlooked the intellectual potential that kids with street smarts have. Graff also says that we only view the educated minds through schooling as the right way and schools and colleges look at kids who do not like school and don’t do well as anti-intellectual people.

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behavior, learning and memory of an individual ( 1). While Dr. Noble noted the more affluent children possessed larger hippocampuses than their disadvantaged counterparts (Brain Trust 47), Hanson notes that the lifestyle of less affluent families affect the hippocampus negatively. For instance, maternal separation can negatively impact the hippocampus, I.e. working mother's. The lower the income a household has, the more stress it faces. Outstanding stress can have long-lasting negative effects on the hippocampus (1.).

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407 Words | 2 Pages

Intelligence is what gets us by everyday; it gets us jobs and helps to provide for ourselves and others. I'm not saying you need to be the smartest person ever to be successful, but you at least have to be smart enough. Gladwell mentions that "Langan’s IQ is 30 percent higher than Einstein’s. But that doesn’t mean Langan is 30 percent smarter than Einstein. That’s ridiculous.

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One of the few negatives about book Outliers is that the author provides many arguments that an individual's success is influenced on situations in their lives that are inherited. For example one of the first examples Malcolm gladwell provides in the book is with hockey players. Gladwell explained that kids born in February have a better chance at playing professionally. This gave the impression that success is based more off of inheritance or ecology instead of individual merit and hard work.

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1495 Words | 6 Pages

He believes people are successful because of their families and circumstances while growing up. I understand how he would have formed this conjecture, but I disagree with his

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1073 Words | 5 Pages

Intrinsic factors critically considered when people think about the main components of success. However, Malcolm Gladwell, a famous writer, contradicts this tendency through the book, Outliers. The book, Outliers insists that extrinsic factors define success rather than the intrinsic ones. Nonetheless, Gladwell himself goes against the topic of Outliers in his assertion: “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires (Gladwell, 2008).” The assertion implies that individuals could achieve success only with those intrinsic factors.

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1250 Words | 5 Pages

Also, Gladwell uses pathos in his writing by emotionally appealing to his audience by incorporating their concerns and interests. Throughout the entire book of Outliers, Gladwell incorporates emotional influence through his word choice and his dramatic testimonies. Moreover, Gladwell uses Marita, a hard working middle-schooler in the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) in New York, applying herself and making up for the “missing ingredients” of success, as an emotional testimony when writing about people that want to interfere in their factors of success. He prefaces with a testimony from Marita herself, describing her issue and the end of having friends outside of KIPP by using strong emotional words, “Here is Marita again, in a passage that is a little short of heartbreaking,” (266). Another emotional persuasion method Gladwell uses to incorporate the audience’s concerns is his reoccurring use of children focused evidence.

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1996 Words | 8 Pages

Outliers: The Story of Success Writing about Reading Defense of Passages In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenges those who assume hard work is the only path to success. “It is not the brightest who succeed. Nor is success simply the sum of decisions and efforts we make on our behalf.” Gladwell states that success can happen through a series of different factors.

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606 Words | 3 Pages

Outliers, written by Malcolm Gladwell, is an informational book regarding the intricacies of success and how it comes to fruition in individuals. Outliers has served to teach students the means of being successful and the importance of seizing opportunities as they come. Personally, Outliers has changed my views of success in numerous ways. Before reading said book, I had always assumed people who were naturally talented or had specific privileges were the only ones who could get far. However, Gladwell’s writing has informed me that anyone, if they are prepared to work hard, can reach their goals.

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