This article is about people growing old past 100. It talks about how there are less and less centenarians in our society, which is very unusual, especially at the positive rate that the numbers were going. They discuss different meanings of why this was happening, one being that the time period of the oldest generation living could have had an effect on age. They also talk about how “the body [is]… like a machine [and] amasses more flaws as it ages… increasing the probability of breakdown, or death”.
The author of this piece is Carl Bialik. On the WSJ website, he says that he is the “senior special writer” who was a free-lance writer before said job offer. He also has a bachelor’s degree in math and physics from Yale University. This shows his credibility because he not only has a great educational background – especially for this topic – but he also works for the WSJ…as a senior special writer, which is a very prestigious job.
The context of the piece would be spacial. It would be spacial because in the article, he had to refer back to previous years and the age results of how many centenarians there were. It would also be spacial because although it was a “reaction” to the reading, it would not be causal because it is more about long-winded research and not short blurbs of reaction.
The purpose for this article was to explain to people why there are not as many centenarians as there were in previous years. Although it did show how the increase of age meant an increase of death rates for a specific group, they should have given specific reasons why these people were dying (IE what was happening during the time period that these people with less centenarians were born?). I also think the purpose was to compile all of the research on this topic into one central idea – by adding in different scientific insights from a few people.
The audience that this was written for would be older Americans – people who are concerned with “death”, and people who are just interested or noticed the sudden drop in the number of centenarians.
o A listing of any rhetorical elements in the piece
Rhetorical elements used in this were: motifs, objective tone and organization of data. As for the motifs, the constant motif was “centenarians”. It was this because this word constantly kept coming up all throughout the article to explain their scarcity, how they got to where they are and what their deaths may do.
As for the tone, I believe that it was very semi-formal because they used an objective – not subjective – tone. This type of tone then improves the author’s ethos because the people can believe you more when you have more of an open mind/detached voice. It was shown through personal phrases like “This is bad news for anyone who wants to reach the century mark, but could provide an odd measure of relief for pensions, retirement programs and medical insurers, whose costs rise as people live longer”. This was used to qualify the fact that “Death rates among Americans born between 1875 and 1895 [are] climbing steadily as they age”. The two sided, qualifying article allows the reader to think that much more.
As for the organization of the data, I believe that they did place the data (IE bar graph to show direct relation between time and amount of centenarians) that they had in a convenient sense (right in the center of the article to bring your focus back). Although this rhetoric did work, I think they needed more data, especially from the scientists they cite! I couldn’t quite imagine what they were talking about because they didn’t give specific examples as to what the scientist were talking about (IE explain signs of the body decaying).
I don’t think that the author accomplished their purpose. I believe this because although I did see that the reasons for this increase in death and decrease in centenarians (because of the time periods this older generation was born and also because the body just starts to break down at one point), I didn’t quite believe it. I would like it if they added more examples and explanations of why this was happening – not just a few mere suggestions of what they “think”.
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