Writing Styles of Choy and Trimble

Mixture of Writing Styles

Ў°The trouble with writing is that despite what many handbooks suggest, there are no hard and fast rules, no magic formulas that make it an easy step-by-step process. You have to reconceive the rules every time you sit down to write because every occasion has its own specific requirementsЎ± (American Heritage Book). Writing is something that is unique in the way that each person does it differently in their own sort of way, therefore creating their Ў°own style.Ў± Wayson Choy has his own style of writing as with Trimble and all the other writers. But it is inaccurate to say, that one of these writers, can write the ideal essay with only just their own style of writing. Trimble had many good techniques that can be better when used in a different type of writing, as in this case, many aspects of ChoyЎЇs writing was more suitable for this essay. Choy chose to use his own technique in some cases and advocated some of Trimbles when more suitable. In the essay, Ў°The Ten Thousand Things,Ў± Watson Choy cleverly incorporates many techniques of Trimble into his own piece of writing, having a mixture of styles from both Trimble and himself, therefore making an overall effective essay.

Trimble mentions that in order to write a good opener that attracts the attention span of the reader, a technique that he strongly suggests is Ў°front door approach,Ў± where the writer, Ў°march into their subject with breathtaking assuranceЎ± (26). But in the essay by Watson Choy, he merely begins with Ў°I saw your mother last week. The strangerЎЇs voice on the phone surprised me. She spoke firmly, clearly with the accents of VancouverЎЇs Old Chinatown: Ў®I saw your mah-ma on the streetcar.ЎЇЎ± And this leads on to Choy unfolding more information about his mother, the death of his mother, resuming it back to the present time, and then slowly easing the reader back into the past. This opening can be critiqued by Trimble in being too wordy, as he believes Ў°the first four or five sentences are make-or-breakЎ± (28). Choy wrote in a manner that includes a lot of detailed information, explaining more details than necessary at times. His beginning essay is long taking over two pages just to explain that one event, making his essay wordy but efficient. Even though TrimbleЎЇs rule was not used, Choy was still able to produce an overall positive effect. Choy used descriptive writing so that the concepts are easy to grasp along with genuine and personal events that can be related to in some cases.

Trimble stresses the importance of including evidence in order to support what the writer is trying to say. Ў°Assertions are fine, but unless you prove them with hard evidence, they remain simply assertions. So assert, then support; assert, then supportЎ­examples and facts are the meat of it. They do the actual convincingЎ­Ў± (47). The type of evidence that Trimble refers to in his text is Ў°factual proof,Ў± (34) with the main objective to have readers respond to the piece of writing, Ў°Yes, I understand now. YouЎЇve convinced meЎ± (33). In order to accomplish this, it is not limited to TrimbleЎЇs way. Choy shows a different technique that is just as effective; he uses examples from his personal life, quotes from short conversations, and mainly the variety of short quotes scattered through the essay accomplishes this same goal. Trimble states in his text, Ў°Ў­You work from where his[reader] head is, not yoursЎ± (37). He mentions that it is essential for the writer to consider who the audience is going to be. Similarly, a quote taken from The American Heritage Book of English Usage states that, Ў°Writing for university students is different from writing for business associates. Writing for older people is different from writing for teenagers. Writing about medicine is different from writing about sports. Writing to explain is different from writing to persuade.Ў± Choy was able to grasp this concept when writing his essay, so he includes excessive information regarding a time in history. He writes thinking that the average person is not a history major, so he attempts to help reader understand the story by giving the background information. His writing is aimed for the general public. When retelling of the period in which he had grown up in, he follows with a short explanation, Ў°During the Depression and the War years, the trading and selling of children, especially the giving and taking of male children, were not uncommon