 According to Bakri Siregar, the diction in "Sitti Nurbaya" does not reflect Marah Rusli's personal style, but a "Balai Pustaka style" of formal Malay, as required by the state-owned publisher.As a result, Rusli's orally-influenced story telling technique, often wandering from the plot to describe something "at the whim of the author", comes across as "lacking".