TOW #4- Outliers

IRB- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell was written in 2008, which was the same year that Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. In addition to writing five books that were all on The New York Times Best Seller list, Gladwell attended the University of Toronto, and has been working for The New Yorker since 1996. Since not all readers of his books are aware of Gladwell’s credentials, throughout Outliers he uses many different and popular studies and scientists in order to prove his point and gain the trust of his audience. One example of Gladwell’s appeals to ethos is when he cites “a study done in the early 1990s by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music” (Gladwell 38). This statement is relevant to the topic of that section (how famous musicians such as Mozart did not master orchestrating overnight), and also shows that Gladwell’s argument has been proven by other credible scientists. In the first part of Outliers, Gladwell describes strange patterns in the birthdays of ice hockey players, and how the amount of time a person invests in a hobby affects their success in said hobby. Thus said, as Gladwell is attempting to demonstrate that the mastery of a subject takes time, his frequent appeals to ethos ensure that readers understand and believe what Gladwell is writing. It is obvious that the intended audience of Outliers is the general public because, while Gladwell uses many studies and statistics in his book, the vocabulary is not outstandingly difficult. Here and there, a reader might stumble upon a word they have never seen before; however, for the most part, the book is easy to understand and stay engaged in. I believe that the appeals to ethos in this book were successful because it made Gladwell’s argument more believable, and I was able to truly become invested in his purpose while reading.