Author, Malcom Gladwell, in his book, Outliers, examines what it takes for a person to become successful. His purpose is to inform his readers on how success is achieved through opportunity, practice, and other people. He adopts a determined tone in order to achieve this. Throughout this book, Gladwell successfully achieves his purpose by utilizing informative expositions to set up each claim, repetition for persuasion and emphasis, and logos to reinforce it with evidence and appeal to reason.
When introducing a claim, Gladwell begins with the use of exposition to provide background information to his readers. The book begins with the “Roseto Mystery” (Gladwell 3) in which the author tells a story about a group of Italians immigrating to America. The immigrants …show more content…
When discussing the factors that lead up to a plane crash, Gladwell makes it a point to emphasize that they are “much more likely to be the result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions” (183) rather than a dramatic incident. In order to do this, he repeats the phrase “and another” when discussing how many mistakes lead up to a crash on page 184. By repeating the phrase Gladwell is forcing his readers to notice how many mistakes it takes.
Finally, Gladwell uses logos to justify his claims with reason, logic, and evidence. In order for his claims to be credible, the author builds up his support with facts and statistics. While telling a story involving IQ tests, Gladwell gives information about the tests themselves that help to buttress the claims. He includes information about a test known as “Raven’s Progressive Matrices” (77) and follows it with an example for his readers to attempt. This aides him in his argument by persuading his readers that the information they are receiving is well researched and