"Me Talk Pretty One Day" Analysis

          In the excerpt "Me Talk Pretty One Day", the author, David Sedaris, describes his experience of learning French in a foreign country. His writing is funny, casual, and effective in connecting with the reader. By following many of the strategies laid out in The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing, by Michael Harvey, Sedaris turns this experience into an entertaining and effective piece of writing.
        Sedaris creates this casual easy-to-read feeling by avoiding what Harvey would call a "pompous style in action: big words, self important phrasing, a flat tone, long globs of prepositional phrases"(1). When reading the excerpt, I could almost picture Sedaris with a microphone on a stage telling his story like a comedian. Not only is he casual, but he is concise. Sedaris writes passages like "I’ve moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language. " He does not embellish or attempt to dress up the sentence with adjectives and adverbs. This keeps the readers attention rather than lulling them to sleep (Harvey 3). This technique of being concise leads to clarity, so the reader can actually understand what he's talking about. Although concision is only a part of clear writing, Sedaris also makes sure that he gets each point he's trying to make across to the reader, even if that means adding length instead of reducing it. For instance, when describing his teacher, she is not simply a "bad teacher" but a teacher that "hadn’t yet punched anyone, but it seemed wise to protect ourselves against the inevitable"(Sedaris 13).
        According to Harvey, "good essays unfold like stories"(23). To do this, authors must use consistent characters to keep the text flowing and to avoid choppy sentences. For instance, Sedaris writes, "I’ve moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language. My school is an easy ten-minute walk from my apartment, and on the first day of class I arrived early, watching as the returning students greeted one another in the school lobby"(11). He focuses on himself, then brings in the other students towards the end of the passage. This "control[s] how your reader moves from one character to the next"(Harvey 23).
        To build a nicely structured piece of writing, Harvey suggests using opening sentences to prepare the reader for what is going to be discussed in that paragraph (71). For the most part, Sedaris sticks to this strategy and it seems to effectively keep his topics flowing between paragraphs. In the third paragraph, Sedaris begins with "The first day of class was nerve-racking because I knew I’d be expected to perform". Although It's simple and straightforward, it's also very effective in connecting topics. Sedaris had just finished giving us background information on his class, and in the following paragraph, goes on to talk about his first day. The reader knows what to expect and can more easily understand the content while the text continues to flow smoothly.
        In most cases, Sedaris utilizes the strategies found in The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. Although there are a few things he does differently, such as not always avoiding the passive voice (Harvey 17), or making sentences as concise as they could be (Harvey 8), I don't think changing any of these things would make it a better piece of writing. Sedaris uses Harvey's techniques in a way that are effective for his own style of writing.