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  • Essay / The Hill to Success in “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell

    In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the author exclaims: “In Outliers, I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success do not does not work. People are not born from nothing.” This demonstrates Gladwell's goal of changing the world's mind that success does not happen overnight, but requires effort, opportunity and help. Towards the end of the book, Gladwell begins to talk about his own success emerging from the hidden advantages and multiple opportunities his parents and grandparents received, and this is where the purpose of his book really begins. Additionally, Gladwell's strategic organizational choice for the Outliers draws on various examples. In each chapter there are different reasons why people are successful. By choosing this organization, Gladwell makes it easy for the reader to recognize what he is saying. Malcolm Gladwell mentioning his own family history provides more reasoning for his purpose since it is based on a true story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay To begin with, Gladwell's point in the book, Outliers, is that one must be given opportunities, born at the right time, have the right cultural background, and have help from others to succeed. An example Gladwell cites is one of the well-known successful geniuses, Bill Gates, who was given opportunities to accomplish his discovery of computer programming. As noted in Outliers, Gates did not succeed himself. After school, he would go to an office to work on programming, but after their bankruptcy, Gates and his friends began frequenting the University of Washington library. The number of hours Bill Gates and his friends spent at the library adds up to over 10,000 hours of experience, but then again, he was not alone. Gates had help from friends, parents and help from school to succeed. Additionally, with Gladwell mentioning his family history towards the end of the book, it makes his goal for the book more realistic to the reader since it contains real life experience. In the excerpt “A Jamaican Story,” he talks about a major civil war in Jamaica as a possible factor in his own current success. Furthermore, Gladwell describes his own family's success as a series of flukes that were not clearly designed to reach the current state. From his great-great-great-grandmother who picked sugar cane on the plantations of Jamaica to his mother who was a successful writer in Canada. This just shows how one can come from a difficult background, yet still receive an opportunity that can allow us to succeed despite those challenges, which is Gladwell's point of view. Next, throughout Outliers, Gladwell uses a specific structural organization. For each point Gladwell makes, he offers a success story and follows it by describing the factors that caused such fortune. An example of this use of organization is when Gladwell begins discussing the Beatles. Gladwell mentions the Beatles' origin, which was full of strip clubs and bars, so they always had interesting gigs because their town lacked rock 'n' roll bars. After a few years, they were sent to Hamburg, Germany, and it was there that George Harrison and Ringo Starr met John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who once had a small "band" themselves. They discovered everyone's dream of becoming a rock band and created the Beatles. With more practice, they became very popular. Furthermore, they would not have..