Summary
When curious students enter the website, they are greeted by pictures of the lush and beautiful scenery of the college campus. Duke University wants new students to enroll, whether it is undergraduates or transfer students. Duke is seeking “people of action,” they’re looking for people who want to make real change and who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo. Through using purpose, the author informs these students what life would be like if they enrolled, and through using the ideal reader the author reaches out to these new students.
Analysis
The author’s purpose is to get new students to enroll and feel welcome at Duke University. By using the website, they reach out to new students by informing them of what life would be like if they enrolled. They want new students to feel at home and welcome. They want readers to wonder if this life is for me? When they first enter the website, they are greeted by bold words over a picture of the Duke campus saying, “This is Duke.” The author does this to give the reader a glimpse and a view of what’s happening at Duke. The author wants the reader to be intrigued and curious about the campus. By highlighting events that are happening today, the reader will be curious enough to continue looking through the website. As they scroll, they will discover Duke’s calendar of “events to come” allowing them to click, set a reminder and get an overview of the event and location so they can decide whether they’ll go or not. The author continues to welcome the reader and persuade them to join, by highlighting social media posts from people’s honest opinions of the college on Twitter on “#Duke Social.” By doing this the author uses real opinions and testimonies about the college to show readers that other people love and think they should join the college, too. As they find their way through the easy-to-navigate tabs, they’ll find themselves on the admission page. From there the authors grab their attention again with a big bright phrase asking the reader to imagine “how many lives can you live in four years?” By questioning the reader, the author gets them to think about the many ways they can live their new lives on campus. As one student put it “The Duke experience is all-encompassing, interactive, and vibrant. There’s an element of camaraderie here that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”(Edward Coles, Admissions”). This quote supports the author’s purpose by telling new students that life at Duke is a more unique experience than anywhere else and that these are words from a student who just graduated last year. Duke has numerous amounts of students and staff on campus, with Duke having an 8:1 ratio of students to staff and over 6,542 students to meet and become comrades with. The author knows moving somewhere new and making new friends is tough, so they highlight campus life by phrasing “Community foundation”(Duke Campus life). By doing this they continue to persuade the readers by explaining to them how all first-year students will live together and eat together so they will be able to forge a friendship as well as talk to others who might be experiencing the same feelings that they are going through.
Another strategy used by the author is the large rhetorical strategy, imagining the ideal reader. The ideal reader is not necessarily the best; it’s the reader, but those who would grasp the idea the author is telling. The author goes about doing this by highlighting Duke’s academic data, the kind of things students can do off and on campus to make a difference, and the kind of students Duke is searching for. The author highlights Duke’s academic data by informing readers about the different and numerous combinations of fifty-three majors, fifty-two minors, and twenty-three certificates they can earn through Duke with 437,989 combinations of the three. Duke offers new students the option to build the academic life they want and gives them access to advanced learning centers, one-on-one with their professors at an 8:1 ratio, meaning there’s always someone they can talk to for help. The authors highlight Duke’s research opportunity and the $800,000,000 spent on research funding, which tells readers, that there are many things they can research and discover without a fair amount of funding. The author also informs the reader about the many ways they can make a real-world difference off-campus by informing them about the 1.6 million hours Duke students have volunteered through programs like Duke Engage or the opportunity to make their degree program with Program II. This shows the reader that’s looking to get involved with programs to make a difference in the world, that they’re available for them to sign up and start making a difference as soon as they join. Lastly, the author uses imaging the ideal reader by quoting the Dean of undergraduates admission by stating, “We look for students who operate at the intersection of imagination and impact—students who are unafraid to undertake things that are messy, complex, and outside of their comfort zone.” (Christopher Guttentag “Our students” Duke). The author chose this quote to support their persuasion by using it as a rallying call. No one is perfect, but the author knows that the ideal Duke student would answer the call. They would enroll not because they had to find a college but to enroll to make a difference, to be the change they wanted to see.
Response
Would I personally go to this college? Honestly yes. Duke is a wonderful college. There are so many things to do on campus. I have so many options to create not just a club for myself but an academic program for my design. All these options are great, but the main reason I would go to Duke is their biology and research programs.
Another reason I want to go to Duke is the community. Duke campus is a large campus packed with so many things to do and see. I always wanted to experience dorm life and being away from home. Just by looking at Duke’s virtual tours, I could get a glimpse of some of the fun activities I can experience there. Besides the community and research, I feel as if I can make a difference by going there. Duke is a college that gives people who want to make a difference, get involved, and create an option to make a real-world difference. This is important to me because it was a goal in my life to make a difference through biology by either figuring out a way to make surgery easier or discovering a treatment for an illness when I saw the amount of money I could receive for research my mind was made up.
Bibliography
university , Duke. “Academic Possibilities.” Duke Undergraduate Admissions, 25 Feb. 2022, https://admissions.duke.edu/academic-possibilities/.
University , Duke. “Our Students.” Duke Undergraduate Admissions, 6 Jan. 2022, https://admissions.duke.edu/our-students/.
University , Duke. “Your First Year.” Duke Undergraduate Admissions, 3 Dec. 2020, https://admissions.duke.edu/your-first-year/.
University , Duke. “Academic Life.” Duke Undergraduate Admissions, 4 Oct. 2021, https://admissions.duke.edu/academic-life/.
University, Duke. “Beyond Campus.” Duke Undergraduate Admissions, 4 Oct. 2021, https://admissions.duke.edu/beyond-campus/.
University , Duke. Duke University, https://duke.edu/.