TOW #4- IRB: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, a journalist and author, discusses and theorizes many of the factors that contribute to high levels of success. This is his one out of five books, most of which are national bestsellers, that he has written. Gladwell believes that people’s beliefs on what success comes from are not accurate, which pushed him to write this book. Outliers pushes the readers to disregard their former beliefs of what success comes from, as this is necessary to understand Gladwell’s unorthodox beliefs on what causes success. Because of this, Outliers is aimed towards people who are or want to become leaders and successful people.
Gladwell uses many rhetorical devices in order to achieve his purpose to explain the origins of prosperity. Since his theories tend to be more unconventional than those of other people, these devices are essential in order to support his arguments and make them more believable. One of the major devices that he uses is anecdotes. For example, in Chapter 1, he explains the “Matthew Effect,” which is the idea that success favors people who were born with an advantage. These people are given more opportunities to become successful. He ties this theory to sports and education by explaining that children who were born at the beginning of an age cutoff for a sport or grade have the special advantage of getting a few more months to develop than the other kids in that group. They would stand out as more talented and would be chosen to be part of a gifted program in school or part of the elite level in a sport. He uses stories of kids who had this advantage and grew up to be more successful. This allows the reader to see that there are many cases that support his reasoning.
Gladwell also uses data in order to support his arguments. He gives many charts of rosters that show the birthdays of successful sports teams and shows that the majority of the team members have birthdays at the beginning of the age cutoff (e.g. the cutoff for Canadian hockey is January 1 and most of the players of a team that won the national hockey championship a few years earlier had birthdays between January and March). This data that he provides show that statistics support his argument, giving it validity. Overall, his rhetorical tactics are heavy in an appeal to logos since reason an essential part to supporting his argument.
Overall, I believe that Gladwell’s use of rhetorical devices effectively support his untraditional theories, and builds his purpose to explain the true factors of success.

Outliers Book Cover
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41h5QL0vVEL.jpg)