Summary and Response on Outliers Chapter 4

Summary and Response on Outliers Chapter 4 

"the troubles with geniuses, part II"

In Malcolm Gladwell’s Oultiers Chapter 4 “the troubles with geniuses, part II,” Gladwell states that for those high IQ people, their family background determine whether they could be successful or not. He uses the Langan example from last chapter. Langan has extremely high IQ but he is born in a poor family. His parents don't care about his education. Gladwell puts this parenting style as “natural growth”; from a study about students’ behaviors based on their family background done by a sociologist Annette Lareau. It means those parents are responsible for them but let them grow by themselves. Children grow up with this type of parenting usually afraid of the authorities or don't know how to speak up. Langan is one example; the fail of renewing his scholarship and the fail of rescheduling his class period support that. There is another type of parenting called “concerted cultivation;” Robert Oppenheimer is an example. He grew up in a middle class family with he knew how to interact with “authorities” since he is little. He knows how to use his “entitlement.” Therefore, even though he tries to poison his tutor, he gets probation as result. Moreover, he gets himself a chance to work on the atomic bomb. Gladwell thinks that geniuses with both “analysis intelligence” and “practical intelligence” could be success; and the “practical intelligence” is affected by their family backgrounds in chapter 4. (pp. 91-115)

I think Gladwell’s idea in this chapter is said to the point and is insightful. Many geniuses are very smart and many of them are lack of the skill to communicate well with authorities or others. This chapter is well shown the factors for this outcome. People’s family background and their parenting style affect their future; although I think the parenting style is more important. However, the family background is an effect on their parenting style. Not only to geniuses, parenting style is important to normal people. Parents affect heavily on children’s future. Let them grow and develop on their own is good, but guidance from parents are essential. In this chapter Gladwell shows his reader one factor to success, family background and their parenting styles. However, it is not them to choose or change easily. 

Summary on Outliers Chapter 3

Summary on Outliers Chapter 3 “The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1”

In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers chapter 3 “the trouble with geniuses, part 1,” he states that a person’s IQ is not so effective to success once they reach a level; it means that people have equally chance to become successful once they pass a high level of IQ. He uses basketball players to explain it and make it easier to understand. He writes that the height matters to the basketball players; however, once it reaches a height, it doesn't matter so much. Any heights over that, speed and skills matter; so does IQ to people. He uses a very high IQ person named Christopher Langan who has higher IQ than most of people even Einstein, but he doesn't have that kind of big achievement as Einstein. There is a study of geniuses which is about a group of geniuses grow up have a normal life without any big achievements to supports Gladwell’s idea. Gladwell believes that there is one thing that affects a person besides IQ; that is imagination. When two people have the same level of IQs, their imaginations affect more to success. (pp. 69-90)

I think Gladwell is right. Although IQ is an important element to success, it is not the only element to success. I like that he uses many interesting study and examples to back up his idea. And the IQ test questions are very interesting too. It makes the readers engage in the reading by thinking how to solve the problems. There are more examples like this, for example, the brick and blanket test and the manhole question. It really makes me think. I even wen online and did a set of IQ test questions. Although he states that IQ is not so important once they reach a level, does he means that everyone below that level can’t become successful? He also mentions the graduate universities of Nobel Prize winners. Although he believes that those rejected by Harvard who are equally intelligent as those accepted by Harvard go to other school and also have the ability to win the Nobel Prize, I think education from the university also matters. Even though they don't get into Harvard, they enter to good college with better education than many of others.

Revision for Essay 3 draft

According to the reading handout “Rewriting is the essence of writing well-where the game is won or lost” written by William Zinsser, revise is a very important step when you write. Revise is not the same as proofread; revise needs the writers to rethink the thesis and reorganize the bodies in order to make the piece better and make sure you are focus on your topic. Revision is all about rethinking ideas and supporting evidences; don't worry about grammar errors at this point. There are some tips I think are useful, use hardcopy when I revise, “read the paper out loud”, and imagine yourself as a reader who has never read your essay as you revise. Moreover, revise takes a pretty long time; it is not a few-minute work. Although you can revise it as you write, the better way is to “look at the essay as a whole.”

Based on what I learned from the handout, I think I will leave my essay for a day and reread it so I can read it with fresh eyes. I am planning to spend an hour or two to revise my essay. When I revise it, I will use the method that read the essay out loud; sometimes I will miss or ignore the mistakes by accident when I read silently. Based on my conference, I will read the Chapter in Outlier again and see what examples or details I can use to support my points. Also I will rethink my thesis and see if all of my points can support it. For the summary of the chapter, I will need to make sure all the details are absolutely needed and see if I miss any ideas. I think I will ignore grammar problems as I revise and proofread the whole essay later. Because I miss the works cited page in my second draft, I will sure to add it.

Summary on Outlier Chapter 8

Summary on Outlier Chapter 8

"Rice Paddies and Math Tests"

        In Malcolm Gladwell's Outlier Chapter 8 "Rice Paddies and Math Tests", he states that people who work hard and spend more hours on work are successful. He uses two examples to support his statement; there are farmers in Southern China who plant rice paddies and Asians who are good at math. In the first example, he writes that rice paddies farmers spend more time farming and they really care about growing rice. Because the work to plant rice paddies is more complicated, it requires them to work harder than other types of farmers. Rice farmers work about 3000 hours a year compares to others hunters or farmers. Gladwell thinks people who are willing to spend these much of time on farming must be able to make the family rich and be successful. The second examples he states that students from those rice paddies farming area are more likely to do well on math. Besides the number-naming system difference between Asian and the West (Asian number-naming system is less complicated than the West's, it is one of the reasons why Asians are more interested in and good at math), Asian students usually spend more time on study. This makes them do better on math than students from the West, according to Gladwell. The two examples of Renee and the TIMSS test he writes support his point of people spend more time on math are more likely to do well on it. This chapter is about stating that success is functions of unremitting and more time spend on work. (pp. 224-250) 

Response on Introduction of Outlier

  What I like about the reading is that the author uses two true stories to show the definition of outlier. He makes me have a deeper understanding of outlier. I only heard of outlier in my math class and I thought it is just a mathematical term, which it is not. The Roseto and Stewart Wolf are two outliers in health and physics. I am amazed by people who live in Roseto can have such a health body and a low heart disease rate compare to rest of people in America. The author also use detail description on Wolf’s research on Roseto. He describes all the possibilities that Wolf has thought of and how all of them don’t work in the Roseto case. The only difficult thing in the reading is in the first two paragraphs. There are many city names and some unfamiliar words to me. It slows down my reading speed a little bit, but then it is not difficult to understand the story. Honestly, at first, I was thinking when I will finish this thing. But then, it interests me; it makes me wonder why exactly those people can be so healthy. I want to ask the author why he chooses this little town as an example of outlier but not any others. I learn that we can’t be successful without others’ help; we have to understand how others affect us, just like people in Roseto. 

Introduction

My name is Jiewen Xiao; people also call me Sue, considering my Chinese name is not easy to pronounce. I don’t know why I choose this name, maybe because it’s simple. I come from Guangzhou, China; where is in the southern China. I am majoring in Business, but I am thinking about changing my major. I live on campus, in the Gillson Hall. I've assigned to a triple room, but the third roommate never showed up. The other roommate who did show up is also Chinese, which is kind of convenient. Then my roommate and I decorated the room and moved the furniture all by ourselves and make it looks just like a double room. I am pretty amazed by what we've done.

    

I've studied in the United States for two years. I went to a Catholic high school in Portland, Maine; I spend my junior year and senior year there. It was mandatory for all international students to take ESL; we have done some blogging for homework. But honestly, I don’t use blog except for homework. I don’t feel to exiting to write on the internet since it is a homework essay. It feels like limited to write for homework, it doesn't like the things I write usually to share. It is more like an essay. However, it is more convenient to share and read to our classmates. When I write on the internet, it depends on which application I use to post things. If there are some friends speak other languages following me, I will write in English. But usually I write it in Chinese, because it is easier for me to express myself in my primary language.