Malcolm Gladwell argues that the reality behind any success story is very different from the long-held assumptions that many people possess around the notion of success. Success involves a highly complex set of circumstances, argues Gladwell, and though luck and hard work can often contribute to success, other conditions must also be met for a success story to take place.
When formulating your own thesis statement about success, make sure your argument is debatable; re-stating Gladwell's argument as your own will not work for a five-paragraph argumentative essay. Some ideas you might consider exploring in your own argument include the role of race and/or class, whether or not education is as important as people make it out to be, or even the potential of a role model's ability to impact a person's chances of success. Plenty of evidence around these issues is available to you in Gladwell's book.
Once you formulate an original and debatable thesis statement, create a brief outline of your three body paragraphs. Each of these paragraphs must start with a topic sentence that addresses some aspect of your overarching thesis statement; each topic sentence should also summarize the argument contained in that particular body paragraph. Every sentence in the paragraph must connect back to the topic sentence. Once you have your outline ready, look for quotes that support your ideas. Paraphrase them so that you know you understand the quotes you are using as evidence, and organize your quotes so that you have two to three quotes per body paragraph.
Finally, write your conclusion and introductory paragraphs. Many writers struggle when they try to write their introductions before their body paragraphs; writing the introduction after the body paragraphs ensures that you know what you are introducing and streamlines the whole process. Your conclusion can make a point about your essay that leaves your reader with a final interesting thought—but be careful not to end your essay with a new argument or angle to your argument.
The main argument of the book is the idea that successful people are made, not born. Gladwell analyzes the lives and habits of numerous successful individuals from different fields and professions to analyze what has made them successful. In the end, he came to the conclusion that the majority of success is earned, not inborn, even if there is a certain amount of luck or fair fortune that plays a part in their success.
Gladwell coins the concept of the “10,000 hour” expert—the idea that if you spend 10,000 hours on any activity, you will become an expert on it. In the end, he reasons that if you become an expert in a marketable area, you will be successful by putting forth the necessary effort. You can apply this to an essay by analyzing the aspects of success that he discusses—the small amount of luck that takes place, the selection of a marketable skill, and the dedication to honing one’s trade.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that attempts to demythologize the notion of the extraordinary individual by showing the structural factors behind individual success. He argues that individual success stories can be explained by a combination of hidden advantages, cultural advantages, and extensive practice.
A five-paragraph essay consists of an introductory paragraph asserting a thesis, three body paragraphs, each supporting some aspect of the thesis, and a concluding paragraph showing how the body paragraphs confirm the thesis set out in the introduction.
Introduction: Summarize the overall argument of the book concerning "outliers" being explicable through a combination of external preconditions and extended practice.
Body Paragraph 1: Discuss the structural advantages that contribute to success, such as the birth dates of Canadian hockey players.
Body Paragraph 2: Discuss the cultural legacies which can affect success or failure.
Body Paragraph 3: Summarize Gladwell's account of how a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice affects success.
Conclusion: Conclude by showing how the three factors covered in the body paragraphs can explain the success of outliers.
Outliers is a study of extraordinarily successful people. In very simple terms, its author, Malcolm Gladwell, is attempting to explain why these people have been able to achieve as much as they have. His argument is that very successful people are not born that way, but rather made by hard work. This is the famous "10,000 hour" concept that he introduces; only through 10,000 hours of practice, training, hard work in short, can people achieve that level of success. But at the same time, and this is the most important argument of the book, people have to have the means to put in this kind of effort. Brilliant athletes, musicians, and inventors have to have supportive parents and live in societies that support this kind of effort. One can't spend 10,000 hours practicing on guitar if one is hungry, after all. This is Gladwell's thesis in his words:
People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parenting and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways that others cannot.
One way to go about writing about it (i.e. coming up with three body paragraphs) would be to look at some of the specific examples he uses (Bill Gates, the Canadian hockey players, the Beatles, or Robert Oppenheimer) of people who have been recognized as "outliers." Focus on the ways that he uses them to illustrate his thesis. You might also use some "negative" examples, such as Chris Langen, the man with a 195 IQ who works on a ranch and has not achieved the fame and success of someone like Oppenheimer or Einstein. He did not have the encouragement or have the same family support and education that these men had.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Outliers.html?id=3NSImqqnxnkC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button
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