Me Talk Pretty One Day

David Sedaris’s essay Me Talk Pretty One Day is a well-written and formatted essay. After reading The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing by Michael Harvey, we learn to see what makes Sedaris’s piece so captivating and easy to understand. Throughout the essay, we see that Sedaris correctly follows punctuation rules, has well formed paragraphs, and uses the tri-colon to make Sedaris’s “prose plainer and more graceful” (Harvey 47).

            Throughout the essay “Me Talk Pretty One Day” we come across many uses of the comma. Although it does come up quite often, it doesn’t bring down the value of each sentence it is placed in, rather it helps “create long, complex sentences that are still readable” (Harvey 35).  When a writer has many thoughts and descriptions that are necessary to complete a sentence, they have to be able to use the comma appropriately. Sedaris shows that he knows how to correctly use this punctuation mark when he says, “The teacher forged on, and we learned that Carlos, the Argentine

bandonion player, loved wine, music, and, in his words, ‘making sex with the womans

of the world.’” (Sedaris 12). This use of the comma “allow[s] the reader[s] to follow the dense description [of Carlos] without too much strain” (Harvey 35).

            Another correctly used piece of punctuation in the essay is the use of questions. We see that Sedaris follows almost exactly what is said in Harvey’s section about question marks to “direct the readers attention” to a certain idea (44). Because they are designed to direct the reader’s focus on something, they have the greatest effect when placed at the beginning of paragraphs (Harvey 45). Sedaris places his two questions into the beginning of a single paragraph. He asks, “How often is one asked what he loves in this world? More to the point, how often is one asked and then publicly ridiculed for his answer?” (Sedaris 12). The second, more detailed question leads the reader to think about where the essay is going and what the writer is trying to make them think about (Harvey 45).

            Another guideline that Sedaris follows extremely well is how he sets up his paragraphs. After reading The Nuts and Bolts, we learn that “paragraphs represent pieces of an argument” (Harvey 69). The first sentence of a paragraph is usually a great indicator of what that paragraph will be about (Harvey 71). For example, one of Sedaris’s paragraphs starts out saying “My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards” (Sedaris 14). This makes us, the readers, actively predict that the proceeding paragraph will go into further explanation of what his fears are and how they will carry out into the everyday world. Throughout the paragraph we can see how all of these fears are cutting into his every day life until finally he ends these descriptions by saying “I knew my fear was getting

the best of me when I started wondering why they don’t sell cuts of meat in vending

machines” (Sedaris 14).

            The final piece that adds gracefulness, according to Harvey, is the use of the tricolon. This is when there is a list mentioned that consists of only three items. When lists have three items, they “tend to feel balanced and complete” (Harvey 53). Sedaris uses the tricolon a great number of times throughout his essay. Right off the bat we see this when he says that after he obtains his student I.D, he also obtains “a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland” (Sedaris 11).  One paragraph later, we see that all the students in his class were “young, attractive, and well-dressed” (Sedaris 11). These help give the readers a sense of completeness, as long as making the author feel as if he has completed and conveyed all of his thoughts about certain subject matters.
            Me Talk Pretty One Day is a perfect example of writing that follows Michael Harvey’s guidelines. Sedaris does a phenomenal job using punctuation correctly, explaining his thoughts in organized paragraphs, and using tricolons to complete his lists throughout his essay. Without these elements, his writing wouldn’t be as memorable and simple to read, creating a positive effect on the readers.