
Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's Writing Masterclass - refrigerator
https://taimur.me/posts/notes-from-malcolm-gladwell-s-writing-masterclass-part-1
======
wenc
There’s a review[1] on Amazon that speaks to the kind of books Gladwell
writes, and it's both funny and perhaps contains a shred of truth. It goes:

 _”There 's a school of thought that runs something like this: the average US
citizen isn't very bright, has a limited attention span, and has an appetite
only for the superficial. So if you want to write a book about something you
feel to be important, you have to sugar the pill - with lots and lots of sugar
and make sure it's a very small pill indeed.

Hence the style "American-Folksy." In this genre the author leads the reader
gently along by means of first-person narrative, tons of anecdote, and just
the gentlest hint of new information here and there. The lexicon is
undemanding and the pace is calculated to be just brisk enough to prevent the
onset of catatonia while being leisurely enough not to require any strenuous
intellectual activity on the part of the reader. It's basically DisneyWords.

This is a well-tried genre used across a wide variety of subjects. In Search
of Excellence and The Omnivore's Dilemma both use the same style despite their
contexts being very different. And Weiner uses American-Folksy here for
precisely the same reasons and to precisely the same effect. The purpose of
American-Folksy is to take something that could have made a somewhat
interesting 6-page monograph and stretch it out into a book-length
peregrination.”_

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/re...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=145169167X)

~~~
AdamSC1
I used to fall into the camp of being frustrated at Gladwell's books.

I would buy them, read them, learn from them, but be frustrated I spent that
time and only really got one nugget from the book.

Then I became an adjunct professor. Teaching in my first course, I noticed
that even the brightest students would ask me to go over content again with
additional examples and it brought me back to these debates about Gladwell's
books.

I decided to split my class in half, into group A and group B and run an
experiment (that wouldn't impact the student's marks).

For Group A, I would give a detailed two hour breakdown of "Topic #1"
explaining each element of it carefully and slowly. For "Topic #2", I would
give only a thirty minute breakdown of the topic comprised of three anecdotes
applying the topic.

For Group B, I would give the detailed two hour breakdown on "Topic #2" and
the thirty minute anecdote series on "Topic #1".

Then I quizzed them.

Both groups performed better on the anecdote topics by a fairly significant
margin, and not only had the class average performed better, but, I found that
many individuals who often struggled on tests were performing FAR above their
averages.

When I look back to the business concepts I remember, it's never long
convoluted blog posts, or books covering an array of concepts. It's ideas that
can be expressed in a few words (Jelly Effect, Tipping Point, Purple Cow) and
then are beaten to death with examples.

There seem two be two reasons, first and foremost, not every anecdote,
example, or explanation resonates the same with each person. So by increasing
the number of examples you give, you are increasing the likelihood of an
individual reader being able to understand.

Second, just like we learned in elementary with spelling and times tables, to
truly 'learn' something repetition and reinforcement are really important and
increase the likelihood of people being able to recall and apply the concepts
that are taught.

Gladwell and others present just one or two nuggets of brilliance across their
books, but, I think most educators would agree with me, that it is because of
that repetition and variety of example's that most of us understand and
remember the concepts they were trying to teach.

~~~
theNJR
So you're saying that reading notes from the MasterClass isn't a great use of
time :)

~~~
AdamSC1
It could be a great use of time to get the initial core nugget of info, but,
unlike the Masterclass course itself you now have to find your own way to
repeat and reinforce it. If you are the kind of person that can give yourself
a structure of daily practice to implement a new concept more power to you!

------
Fragoel2
Despite owning some of his books, I can't say that I am a fan of Gladwell's
writing style. But his Revisionist History podcast (revisionisthistory.com)
is, by far, one of my favourite things to listen to and I highly recommend to
give it a shot.

~~~
heymijo
I came to Revisionist History with a healthy skepticism of Gladwell. I echo
your sentiments about its worth. The semi-connected episodes 4,5,6 from season
1 about education hooked me.

I also enjoyed Saigon 1965 (S01E02) and the one about McDonald's french fries
but more importantly the beginning of the war on fat in America (S02E09).

He unearths some good perspectives in the podcast and it doesn't have the pop-
sci feel that his books do that get my BS detector going.

------
andyjohnson0
Slightly off topic, but I was thinking of doing Neil Gaiman's storytelling
course [1] on masterclass.com. Wondering if anyone here has done it and found
it useful (or otherwise)?

[1] [https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-
the-...](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-the-art-of-
storytelling)

~~~
wildmindwriting
I'm only on the fourth video so far in his class but already I'm finding it
useful, if for nothing other than having validation that it's okay to write
the kind of stories you want to write. It's also quite interesting to hear the
backstory to some of his books. If the first four videos are any indication, I
suspect the rest of the course will be well worth it.

------
cm2012
Whatever you think about the content, you have to admit Gladwell is a
remarkably engaging writer.

------
duado
I can’t believe marketing culture has gotten to the point where someone is
pre-announcing Part 2 of his notes and offers to notify you if you subscribe.

~~~
refrigerator
hey, didn't mean for it to be subscribe-bait — I'd originally planned to do it
all in one, but it took me a fair bit of time just to go through the first
chunk of the course and write up coherent notes. Breaking it up into parts
made it a lot manageable!

~~~
stronglikedan
Don't listen to OP. You did good. Thanks for allowing me to get a notification
when it's ready, instead of just making me rely on my memory.

------
duado
The best way to read Gladwell is his articles in the New Yorker. His books are
just a magazine article’s worth of ideas in book length.

~~~
jjeaff
I feel like many if not most books are that. They turn into the same idea
stretched thin so they can fill a book.

------
Grustaf
What’s the ketchup conundrum? Is he saying that there is only one tomato based
condiment? Or one maker of ketchup? Neither is true.

~~~
bambax
Heinz ketchup has 80% market share in Europe and 60% in the US. Anybody can
make ketchup, it's one of the simplest condiments, like mayonnaise or maybe
even salt. Yet it seems only Heinz can sell ketchup; the question is why.

~~~
klmr
The thing is, different ketchups taste vastly different. There are actually
several other best-selling brands of tomato ketchup in Germany but they all
taste very different from Heinz, and, in one case, objectively worse (bland).
I used to think that Heinz’ taste is simply due to the ridiculous amount of
sugar they pack into it but it turns out that the low-sugar Heinz variety is
almost indistinguishable, taste-wise.

So I’m not convinced that it’s as simple as all that. I’m not saying marketing
doesn’t play a role but it’s definitely not the only thing.

~~~
johnnycab
>I’m not saying marketing doesn’t play a role but it’s definitely not the only
thing.

The 'bliss point' might play a major role, amongst various other factors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_\(food\))

~~~
gjm11
This is literally just responding to someone saying "people buy more Heinz
ketchup because it's tastier" by saying "perhaps it's because they made it as
tasty as they could".

------
lvs
Step 1: take a bunch of research out of context and spin a nice bedtime tale
that the data doesn't really support.

~~~
zimpenfish
As a wise man[2] once said, "the plural of anecdote is Gladwell"[1]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861468)
[2] Ok, me

~~~
Casseres
I thought [1] was going to be a link to itself
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224648)).

------
petulla
This might have been interesting, but, as a source of truths, it did not age
well. [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-
change-m...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-
malcolm-gladwell)

------
dmschulman
For those leveling the criticism that Gladwell's style is too simplistic and
unacademic, is this stylistic form simply a product of the author or a product
of a publishing industry that knows their audience will choose digestible
prose over dense manuscripts (and sponsors authors and their books
accordingly)?

~~~
kirkules
Those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, nor is either exclusive
with other notions like reader expectations and capabilities being guided to
some extent by the most popular and/or readily available material.

------
zinxq
In the few times I've read (or started to read) one of Gladwell's books I
always think "This book would make a great article".

------
paulcole
If you haven’t heard this before, listen to Gladwell’s unhinged thoughts on
which race/nationality/region (he seems to use the 3 interchangeably) is best
at basketball:

[https://soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/draymond-
vs-...](https://soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/draymond-vs-kd-embiid-
for-mvp-and-the-rise-of-podcasts-with-malcolm-gladwell-and-chris-ryan-the-
bill-simmons-podcast-ep-442)

Absolutely wild and the host is just along for the uncomfortable ride. I still
have no clue what he was thinking.

There are hits, there are misses, and then there are whatever that was.

~~~
gnicholas
For those who prefer skimmable text, it's summed up here:
[https://deadspin.com/malcolm-gladwell-goes-on-bill-
simmonss-...](https://deadspin.com/malcolm-gladwell-goes-on-bill-simmonss-
podcast-deliver-1830449233)

