Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

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,

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