Summary Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

In the excerpt, Outliers: The Story of Success, the author Malcolm Gladwell supports his claim, the ten thousand hour rule, by discussing about a study from Berlin Academy, experts’ opinions, and an anecdote of Mozart. Gladwell’s evidence however, is either insufficient or faulty logic. The study of violinists from Berlin Academy is not enough to prove Gladwell’s claim. In this study, violinists were divided into three groups: the elite students, the merely good students, and the students with little potential aiming to become music teachers (11). After the amount of hours each group practiced was revealed, Gladwell states, “…the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours…the merely good students had totaled eight thousand and future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand.” (12) As much as this study makes his

This one sample does not entirely determine the success of people who practice hours and hours; it only applies to this group of violinists. Had Gladwell discussed about more similar cases, it could’ve possibly proved his claim more accurate. As for the experts’ opinions, Gladwell did not establish enough credibility to show the reader that what the experts are saying is reliable. For example, Gladwell writes, “…writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin…” (12) He did not mention any facts or information about Levitin other than that he is a neurologist. In addition, he writes, “The music critic Harold Schonberg goes further…” (13) With this much information, how can readers trust the experts’ opinions. Without credibility, the experts’ opinions are untrustworthy. The anecdote of Mozart on the other hand, is rather irrelevant to the text. Gladwell refers to a passage from psychologist Michael Howe’s Genius Explained that states Mozart’s early compositions were not the most