We Who Are Left When a Generation Passes-Verlyn Klinkenborg

"We Who Are Left When a Generation Passes," is an especially interesting article by the New York Times author, Verlyn Klinkenborg. He exhibits his usual style: a personal story with a greater message, a casual tone and easy-to-understand word usage, and minimal rhetorical technique. Overall, he begins to tap into readers' emotions but does not effectively sell his point.
The article is written in a compare/contrast format. Klinkenborg begins by using imagery to paint a picture in the reader's head of simpler times. He tells of a family of five children growing up together on a farm and living near each other for the remainder of their lives. In the first sentence, he uses alliteration, saying the words "four," "farm," "formal," and "photograph." In the third paragraph, he uses contrast as a device in one sentence. He directly shows the changes the farms have undergone. He also utilizes personification in saying that the place (farm) itself is "managing loan and insurance programs, subsidies and incentives." Klinkenborg may have used this strategy to make the farm and the generation associated with it seem like living, breathing entities. He uses contrast again in the last paragraph when he compares the definition of a generation he held as a child to the one he believes now.
The overriding point that the author is trying to make is that a generation is not simply a group of people with similar genes, lives, or even cultural practices. By showing the changes in the farm and in himself after his father's generation passed, he attempts to show readers exactly what process led him to his feelings. This brings readers deep into Klinkenborg's personal life, a place that many authors may not feel comfortable bringing their readers. This is a convincing factor in and of itself. However, his conclusion is so short that he does not have time to close the argument or defend it. This exposition-heavy but relatively conclusion-free persuasion tactic leaves the decision up to the readers. It seems as though Klinkenborg is saying, "I've said my piece, do with it what you will." This seems to be his style of writing but a bit more conclusion and convincing would most likely be more effective at bringing others to his side. Other characteristics of his style  such as his laid-back language and scarcity of rhetorical devices are much more effective at drawing readers in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/we-who-are-left-when-a-generation-passes.html