A Rhetorical Analysis Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Christian Joni S. Gregorio

ProfEd03 – Theories of Learning

Prof. Zhanina U. Custodio

3 August 2015

Outliers: Extrinsic vs Intrinsic

In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling nonfiction book “Outliers”, was published by Little, Brown Company. According to Gladwell, “There is a story that is usually told about extremely successful people, a story that focuses on intelligence and ambition. Gladwell argues that the true story of success is very different, and that if we want to understand how some people thrive, we should spend more time looking around them-at such things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth date. And in revealing that hidden logic, Gladwell presents a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most

It takes many other, intrinsic forms (that often happen by chance) for that individual to grasp the top of his field. Gladwell utilize a mix of research and anecdotes in order to precisely bring his point to his readers. His simple and straightforward style of writing propose that he and the reader are good buddies, tempting to pathos to help the reader relate to Gladwell and see his point of view. (Hauk, 2009) This mellow style of writing also appeals to a regular reader: it not only cause the book clear to discern, dissimilar to scholarly nonfiction books on the market, but also makes the reader more interested in the topic because he doesn’t have to toil through the entire academic vocabulary found in other nonfiction works. For example, the author talks directly to the reader when saying, “Over the course of the chapters ahead, I’m going to introduce you to one kind of outlier after another,” and “We’re going to uncover the secrets of a remarkable lawyer (Gladwell 17) .” This form of approach, communicating with your reader on a relax and usual level, helps engage the reader’s mind and keep his or her enthusiasm throughout the

The narrative stories lend real-life examples of data of his position and still involving our mind. There are accounts on a variety of different case, from major league Canadian hockey to Bill Gates the computer genius. Gladwell’s variety of stories shows his audience that his theory holds true not just in one case, but in many unrelated circumstances as well. In the Epilogue of Outliers, Gladwell includes a story about his own family’s rise to success to tie his book together. In an appeal to pathos, he discusses how his mother rose from Jamaican poverty to become a successful person in Gladwell’s life. The author clearly admires his grandmother, Daisy, for providing his mother with a chance at success, and this particular story illustrates his thesis to the audience on a more personal and sentimental level than the other narratives (Gladwell 270). Another of the author’s rhetorical strategies is the use of sound facts found through research. In Chapter One of Outliers, Gladwell appeals to logos by including a chart of the birthdates for the 2007 Medicine Hat Tigers, a major league Canadian hockey team (Gladwell 20). He also includes a list of where the last twenty-five Americans to win the Nobel Prize attended college in Chapter Three (Gladwell 81), as well as chart listing the seventy-five richest people throughout history in Chapter Two (Gladwell 56). This appeal to logos gives the