Finding Meaning In Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers'

I hope I’m not the only IDS student staring at a blank page wondering where to begin. Though I have learned much during this course, figuring out what words to type first was not one of them. I have never been the person who could easily translate ideas into beautifully crafted sentences. Thoughts tend to meander in my head while I struggle to find the words that express them eloquently, if not correctly. Eight weeks later, I am still tormented by my own form of writer’s block. Regardless, while I haven’t discovered a hidden talent for writing an essay worthy of publication in “The New Yorker”, I have improved and will take solace in that. The IDS syllabus promises three outcomes, the first of which is critical thinking. In retrospect, reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”, juxtaposed with “The Craft of Research”, written by Booth, Colomb, and Williams, along with “A Rulebook for Arguments”, by Anthony Weston is a brilliant combination. Gladwell’s book contains provocative theories written in beautiful prose disguised …show more content…
If there is such a thing as a researcher gene, I have it because gathering and evaluating sources of information came pretty easy to me. Compiling the stories, facts, and circumstances into a cohesively read eight-page research paper, did not. It was truly a daunting task. I was grateful for the highlighted sections and dog-eared pages of “The Craft of Research”. It served as step-by-step directions for the process. I took advantage of paper-rater, a thesaurus, and a list of transition words. In the end though, the feedback provided by Professor Clermont-Ferrand (twice) and eTutoring (three drafts) helped me write a research paper I am proud of. I have included my abstract because, in some ways, it was harder to write than the paper itself. I found it difficult to encapsulate all the information I felt necessary into a single, cohesive