The Tipping Point

Summer Reading Essay In The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, the tone clearly drives the strategy to be logos. Logos is an exceptional rhetorical strategy as it persuades the reader, not through the use of emotions and feelings, but rather through the use of logic and reasoning. There exists an energy in the style in which Gladwell writes that has the power to persuade the audience to believe what he believes in, the Tipping Point. Gladwell does not only give us his theory on how epidemics spread, but uses logos to connect the world we live in to his theory. The author’s use of logos results in a greater impact of the rhetoric. When referring to the Power of Context, Gladwell states the theory and the facts to support it. The theory that follows the Power of Context is that “…the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions than the immediate context of you behavior” (Gladwell 165). Ultimately, no matter what a person’s regular behavior is, as soon as his or her immediate context is altered, his or her behavior is altered also. The fact that goes along to support it is the study done by two psychologists that is based on research and actual events. The students who were on their way to talk about Good Samaritans “…literally stepped over the victim…” (Gladwell 165). To the reader’s astonishment, the students who presented the ideas of a Good Samaritan were not the ones who stopped to help the beaten victim. In fact, the students who stopped and the students who didn’t stop were separated into two groups: the ones who were rushing, and the ones who had time. It would seem logical to think that the speakers who were on their way to speak about Good Samaritans would stop. However, the use of this study, which is an example of logos, only shows the reader the strength of the Power of Context and also makes the reader more prone to believing it. To further show the

Cited: Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Back Bay, 2002. Print.