Tow #22- IRB/ "Outliers: The Story of Success"/ Malcolm Gladwell

Everyone wants to be successful, but there may be more to it than we think. Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the New York Times Bestseller Outliers, argues that sometimes being successful is just a matter of luck and circumstance. Through the use of appeals to logos and exemplification, Gladwell gives detailed evidence to support his argument and make his audience reconsider what is really exceptional. 

The majority of Outliers relies on appeals to logos and inductive reasoning. Gladwell structures all of the point that support his argument around facts, statistics, quotes, and his own established, credible analysis of these appeals to logos. For example, when making the point that a person’s birthday is often important to their success, he collects statistics about birthdays across many years and professions, from professional Canadian hockey to the industrial captains of the 19^th century, like Rockefeller and Carnegie. When Gladwell analyzes the circumstances these people were in to make themselves successful, he uses facts as background knowledge to prove their success or explain how their success was “measured”. This background and these statistics work well with all the exemplification in Outliers as well, addressing counterarguments and making his own arguments at the same time.

The exemplification in Malcolm Gladwell’s argument is both interesting and vital as evidence. While they work well with statistics and other facts, they also provide real stories to Outliers that make the book seem like a collection of more than just theories on success. Since the book is psychological, the book would be very scientific and methodical, perhaps even boring, without these examples. But exemplification does more than just mix with logos to form the backbone of Gladwell’s book; Exemplification adds a bit of pathos too by adding a sense of reality and emotion to the book. The people in the examples were real/are real people, like us, and have experienced success, meaning that if we find ourselves in similar situations, or make the most of our lives, we too can be successful.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers is a psychological, subtle “self-help” kind of book that uses appeals to pathos and exemplification to argue that success may be more complicated and circumstantial than we think. It makes its readers think about the true meaning of success while still connecting to its readers through common information and entertaining stories. It is the kind of nonfiction book that doesn’t really seem like a nonfiction book, suggesting that certain things, for some reason, are just successful.