Malcolm Gladwell insists in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that the recipe for success is not simply based on personal talents or innate abilities. Gladwell offers the unusual idea that outliers depend largely on “extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies” (Gladwell19). According to Gladwell, successful men and women are beneficiaries of relationships, opportunities, places and cultures. The author uses a different case study in each chapter to support a particular argument regarding success. Despite his indifference and repression of counterarguments, Gladwell's claims are effective for many reasons, including expert accounts, his tone and writing style, and the technique he uses when opening a chapter. First, Gladwell's claims are remarkably effective as an argument that is a direct result of his use of professional expertise. Perhaps one of the most important aspects of chapter two, entitled The 10,000 Hour Rule, is the inclusion of professional neurologist, Daniel Levitin, who absolutely supports Gladwell's main argument. “Ten thousand hours of practice are required to reach the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert – at anything,” writes Levitin (40). Equally important to the arguments made in chapter two, psychologist K. Anders Ericsson provides a professional insight into the world of the “gifted.” Furthermore, Gladwell draws on the findings of professional psychologist, Michael Howe, and famed music critic, Harold Schonberg, regarding the length of time it took Mozart to produce "his greatest works" (41). By including these experts, Levitin and Howe, in his argument, Gladwell strengthens his claim that success often depends on how… middle of paper… the documents for which Gladwell argues are strongly represented and undeniably convincing. Even without acknowledging rebuttals to his arguments, the author presents compelling claims that are successfully strengthened through the inclusion of expert information, an engaging conversational tone and writing style, and the initial attractions that begin each chapter. Just as Gladwell's recipe for success does not adhere to conventional conceptions, Outliers does not fit into the typical expectations of academic writing. Not acknowledging a rebuttal, for example, is normally considered a lack of credibility; however, as Gladwell points out in Outliers, “This is a book about outliers…doing things out of the ordinary” (17). Works Cited Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The success story. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.