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One emotional appeal Gladwell uses is the speech at the end of the chapter. Gord Wasden was speaking at his son, Scott's hockey game. He expressed his son's passion for the game and how he has been playing it since he was a toddler. He also told the crowd how proud he was of his son's great accomplishment.
Gladwell used this touching speech to try and show the audience that hockey is very important to many of the players no matter how old they are.
In this chapter, Gladwell mainly uses Logos to prove his point that players born in the first three months of the year are most likely to become professional athletes. Gladwell uses several team rosters, the commentary from a hockey game, and the story of one specific hockey player to support his theory that players born in earlier months (such as January, February, and March) are more likely to become successful in hockey or sports with a similar age cut off.
Considered one of Canada's greatest former ice hockey players
Born January 3, 1939
Captain of the San Jose Sharks
Public Argument
Born July 2, 1979
One of the worlds greatest hockey players
In school, kids born in August, September, and October often face a similar situation. Kids born in these months have birthdays which lie around the cutoff date determining what grade he/she is placed in. Depending on the school and the child, a decision is made to have these kids with cut-off birthdays continue as part of the older class or repeating a year of schooling. Those who repeat are the oldest and thus are expected to have a higher sense of maturity and readiness to learn. The kids who continue without repeating the year are not as developed, which can possibly lead to falling behind. In this sense, hockey and school have a similar issue around birthdays. But in both, if kids are naturally mature or talented enough, they can still be very successful.
Born January 26, 1961
Malcolm Gladwell uses ethical appeals in chapter 1 of Outliers by showing us his credibility early in the chapter. Even though we, as reader, do not personally know Gladwell, most of us seem to trust what he says.
Fallacies
Gladwell's evidence is very convincing because of his use of reliable sources. The way he logically presents data and sources strengthens his argument and credibility. In doing this, Gladwell creates a sense of trust between himself and his readers and thus making his argument much more convincing.
The Matthew Effect comes from the Bible verse Matthew 25:29.
This verse tells us that "For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them...."
Gladwell's sources are, in fact, credible. He uses multiple rosters from 2007 teams, which if you look up online, are 100% accurate. Each name is copied down with the correct birthday.
I question the fact that not ALL great hockey players are born in the early months of the year. San Jose Sharks captain Joe Thorton was born on July 2, 1979. How is he so successful?
We accept the evidence provided in the team rosters. We visited the Western Hockey Web page to see if Gladwell had selected a specific example to prove his point which was not representative of all the information. When we looked at the rosters for the other 2007 teams in the league, 9-14 players on each team across the board were born in the first three months of the year.
We tried to find sources which we doubted but when we checked his information and statistics, it all seemed to be correct.
Either-Or: In this chapter, Gladwell is telling people that is you are not born in these particular months, you will not be successful.
Dogma: Gladwell presents his evidence with such confidence that any other argument may seem false even if it is not.
By: Alexis Balomaga
Arpi Deirmendjian
Maya Redlinger
Ellie Zavala
Summary:
Gladwell's Purpose: Malcolm Galdwell's purpose in the first chapter is to introduce his audience to the arguments he makes regarding professional hockey players.
Purpose:
Malcolm Galdwell's purpose in this chapter was to introduce to his readers that success is not only based on skill level, but also a lot of luck.
Audience:
The audience in this chapter is people who play sports, especially hockey or sports that use a similar age cut off date. This would appeal to them because its about their sport and would interest them to see if they or anyone they know fall into the same category. It would also appeal to parents who want their children to play sports. These stats would appeal to them because it could help them plan when to conceive their child for them to have the best chance of being a good player or understand the probability of their child doing well in their sport.
Gladwell's Argument:
The main argument that Gladwell makes is that young hockey players with birthdays in the beginning of the year are given an advantage over players with birthdays later in the year. Gladwell argues that a young age, a couple months can mean significant differences in development level between kids. These kids born in the early months of the year are given a slight advantage over kids born late in the year. Over time, this slight advantage snowballs, creating an even greater gap in the skill levels of kids born in different months. Ultimately, these kids born in the beginning of the year are provided with more opportunities to succeed.
Does this age gap and level of ability occur in any other sports besides hockey?
Ethical Fallacy: Ad Hominem
Logical Fallacy: Faulty Causality
Emotional Fallacy: Scare Tactic