Practice Doesn T Make Perfect By Maria Konnikova

The article, “Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect” by Maria Konnikova, believes and argues the opposite of what most people accept to be true, that practicing something can only get someone so far and that practice alone can never make someone perfect. Maria reported on her interview with a psychology teacher named Zach Hambrick who said he spent at least a thousand hours of practicing golf as a young adult hoping to make it to the PGA, but instead found himself not making the cut for his college golf team. Maria proposes that there are many other factors that play a role in helping someone become extremely talented, or even a professional, in various activities and hobbies in life other than just purely practice. Contrary to popular belief, Maria, …show more content…
The problem that she addresses is that people can spend thousands of hours trying to get good at something and never become the best, and them some people can only practice a little bit but be one of the greatest because it is in their genes. It seems fairly odd, but her purpose is almost to inform the reader that unless they were born to be extremely talented at something, they will never be the best, or it will at least be very difficult for them to achieve greatness at some kind of sport or hobby. Maria mainly uses ethos in order to persuade the reader. She quotes a couple of psychology teachers throughout her writing, but does not distinguish whether they are college professors or just high school teachers. She also appeals to pathos by incorporating a lot of short stories about people who tried so hard but were never able to get to the level they wanted to be at. Her whole article in some sense is a refutation because it is so widely believed that practice can make perfect, so she just tries to refute it all throughout her …show more content…
However, she is probably targeting teenagers and young adults because they are the people who are practicing sports and instruments most often for school. Also, even though her article is long, it does not have large vocabulary words in it and it is easy to understand, which makes me think it is more for teenagers. There are also advertisements for jewelry and wine, but the affordable kinds which would appeal to most young adults since most people in their early twenties are not extremely wealthy yet. Since most people are taught the opposite of what the author is trying to persuade them to think, the author should establish some common ground and then make some good points that will make the audience think about their preconceived thoughts on the subject. The author succeeds in persuading her audience and uses pathos and ethos while doing