William Zinsser College Pressures Summary

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College Pressures

In the article, College Pressures, William Zinsser shows parents the burdens that college students have while they are in school. In the essay he states the four pressures that the students face: economic, parental, peer, and self-induced.
The reader can be easily confused when Zinsser first begins the essay. It starts off with someone writing notes to someone else, but who is speaking? Zinsser then follows this by fully explaining who is writing the notes, a student, and who he is talking to, his dean. He is explaining that the student is full of pressure and feels he cannot take it anymore. Zinsser makes the essay move along smoothly with the use of rhetorical questions and then answers them to prove a point he is making. The classical appeal Zinsser uses in College Pressure is ethos. He is telling the parents what is going on in the minds of the students and the pressures they build up for themselves.
Zinsser explains the situations without using such terminology that only college professor can comprehend. He also uses understandable metaphors that make the reading more interesting. For example, when he explains that no one is to blame for the pressures, he says, “Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt.” This is a classification and division essay. Throughout it, Zinsser talks about what the pressures of the students are; economic, peer, parental, and self-induced. He then separately explains how each of the pressures effects the students. Zinsser speaks in a way that makes the reader want to continue reading. He is persistent in informing the reader about the pressures and tries very hard to get his point out to the