O UTLIERS By Malcolm Gladwell Katherine Yancey

M ALCOLM G LADWELL Born September 3, 1963 Formerly a writer for Washington Post, now works as a staff writer for the New Yorker Has written four New York Times Bestsellers

O UTLIERS Written in 2008 Describes the outliers in today’s society and explains how they got to where they are now. Outliers are not as much of an outlier as we thought Opportunity, Legacy, Preparation

P LOT Ten different stories Hockey players Bill Joy The Beatles Bill Gates Steve Jobs Christopher Langan Joe Floam Harlan, Kentucky Korean Air plane crashes Chinese Rice Paddies Each story has an underlying idea that Gladwell ties together

O UTLIERS IN H OCKEY ? Canadian hockey team Pattern discovered in the major players Can you find it? Most of all the major league players are born in the first three months of the year!

D ICTION Anecdote with an example of an outlier Historical anecdote Story similar to the first, hints at connection Begins to explain his idea Gives graphs and studies to support him Explains how the idea fits with the examples Tie the idea back into the previous examples

S YNTAX Easy to read, no flowery language Concise sentences Informal tone, sounds friendly “If it were not the prelude to a tragedy, their back-and-forth would resemble an Abbott and Costello comedy routine. A little over a minute passes. And Avianca zero-five-two heavy, ah, I’m gonna bring you about fifteen miles northeast and then turn you back onto the approach. Is that okay with you and your fuel? I guess so. Thank you very much. I guess so. Thank you very much. They’re about to crash!” - Outliers, pg

R HETORICAL D EVICES Repetition “They looked at how the Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. They learned about the extended family clans that underlay the town’s social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof.” p. 9 Appositives “When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in advantage.” p. 230 Anecdotes “Joe Floam is the last living ‘named’ partner of the law firm Skadden, arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. He has a corner office high atop the Conde’ Nast tower in Manhattan. He is short and slightly hunched. He is…”