Blogging is Back!! Post #1

Malcolm Gladwell's novel Blink analyzes the validity of our snap judgements and first impressions. In the book Gladwell examines several different scenarios--where people had to make thoroughly thought out decisions and fast decisions that required little thought--to prove that our "intuitive repulsions" can cause us to make educated, controlled decisions. In one of the examples he used, the Getty museum was going to purchase a sculpture for $10 million but they were trying to figure out if the sculpture was real and worth the price they were being charged. Geologist spent a number of days examining the sculpture and after 14 months the staff at the Getty museum found out the sculpture was not real. A decision that took 14 months to make was made in just a few seconds by a few archaeologists and sculpture experts who made decision based on their first impressions. These few experts felt the sculpture was fake, their first time seeing it and were absolutely right. In his novel, Gladwell hopes to convince people that first impressions are completely reliable.

Tone
Factual
Lucid- Clearly understood

Rhetorical strategies
Rhetorical Question- "Can that kind of mysterious reaction be controlled?" (pg. 15)
Logical Appeals

Application
How can our previous experiences affect our first impressions?

Clarification
Do first impressions require any thought at all?

Stylistic
Does Gladwell's factual tone help build credibility that first impressions are accurate?