Examples in Text

In my book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell uses questions as a way to talk to the reader. Throughout the book, he asks questions and gives small tests for the reader. On pg. 78, he writes, "Did you get that? I'm guessing most of you did. The correct aswer is C. But now try this one." He writes this quote between 2 examples from Ravens Progressive Matrices. Which is an IQ test.  The first example is the first question on an IQ test. The image to the left is an example of an easier question in the test.  The second Question is an example from one of the last few questions in the test.  The image at the bottom of this blog is the example that Malcolm Gladwell uses in his book. He talks to us about the examples and uses them to explain that how Chris Langan would be able to answer the second question easily.  The average reader would not be able to figure it out.

6 keys to success

I have been skimming through the rest if the book and the book is split up into 6 different keys. The two that I have blogged about are oppurtunity and 10,000 hours. Those are the first two keys. The third is timing. Where and when your born is a big part of how you can succeed. The fourth is upbringing leads to oppurtunity.   The quality of upbringing a child has been shown to be a main determinant of success of that child. The fifth factor is meaningful work. If you think your woe may have a purpose, you are more likely to succeed in your task. And last is your legacy.

Here is a link to a website that talks about these sections in more depth

slooowdown.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/summary-of-outliers-the-story-of-success-by-malcolm-gladwell-summarised-by-paul-arnold-trainer-facilitator-paul_arnoldme-com/

Krista Ramsey Introduction Activity.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/02/15/krista-locking-into-the-magic-of-legos/5521245/

This column by Krista Ramsey is about kids playing with Legos at Kenwood Town Center and how they learn and benefit from play with Legos. (In the era of violent video games and highly orchestrated "enrichment" activities, a humble pile of Lego bricks is still among the most captivating and creative sorts of child's play.) This is a quote from the column and it makes an impact on the reader by showing how just some Legos can be helpful and spark creativity into kids. They can do this instead of playing video games or being part of enrichment activities. Diction in this paragraph is used to make video games sound violent and uses words like humble and creative to make Legos sound like a great thing. Syntax amount the whole article is relaxed like you can have a conversation with her. It is informal and casual.

     Ramsey's writing style is casual and informational. She writes about her ideas and doesn't give certain plans of action to edge ute her Ideas. She just writes about them in a casual informal way. (Like sparklers and hugs, Legos are things a child can never have enough of.) In this quote, she is talking about kids from a mothers standpoint. She is writing like she is talking to other parents which is what she wants her writing style to sound like.

     If I could ask Krista Ramsey 3 questions my first one would be where she gets her ideas from? After I looked through the list of her columns, she had a wide variety of topics. A second question is how long has she been writing and when did she know she wanted to write columns like hers now? A third question is why did she choose her casual writing style?

What have I learned?

So far I have read just about 100 pages in my book "Outliers".  And this blog is going to be about what I have learned throughout the first 1/3 of this novel.  (If you haven't figured that out from the title yet)
 The first part of this book talks bout how you need not only talent, but you need lots of practice and opportunities. For an example of an opportunity, The Beatles, they are the most well known band across the world. They had a great opportunity to preform at Hamburg. They did not preform here because of the high pay there or the conditions.  In fact they were not great. But they practiced here because of the amount of time they get to preform on stage. They would preform almost 8 hours a day on a daily basis.  This was an ideal opportunity for the Beatles and was a big key to there success as a band.
The second part of the book is the 10,000 hour rule that Malcolm Gladwell came up with.  After much researching he noticed a pattern between various people or groups that became successful. After 10,000 hours of practicing they would become "a master" at whatever they practiced.  For example Bill Joy, creator of Java,  he spent 8 hours a day writing code and programming computers. He spent more time in Michigan's computer center than he did all of his classes.  He described himself as obsessed with programming.  His opportunity was to work at the computer center as much as he wanted. This was Joy's Hamburg.  After 10,000 hours of practice, he w one of the best programmers if not the best.  After that he wrote all of the code for Java. He wrote this 35 years ago and we still use this program today.  The only way he would have achieved this is by having the opportunity to work at the computer center and practicing for those 10,000 hours. Joy actually practiced well over 10,000 hours and therefore became successful.
These are the two main topics within the first 100 pages of "Outliers"

This is the club where The Beatles performed at in Hamburg, Germany