Wijayanti Herlis Pratiwi 132154017

Review: Hoaglan, Edward (1976). On Essays. The Tugman’s Passage. Mind Speaks to Mind :
Selected American Essays. 387 – 1231.

“On Essays” is one of the essays written by Edward Hoaglan that is included in his book
“The Tugman’s Passage”. Graduated from Harvard, he is best-known as an essayist that has
written books of essays about nature and taught writing at various colleges in New York. In this
essay, he argues that although many people think that essays are so old-fashioned and traditional,
essays are far more effective than short stories even the fact of their marketplace proves so. He
tries to convince the reader through his writing by making comparison between essays and short
stories.

In Hoaglan’s essay, based on his own opinion and personal experience of years writing
essays, he explains the comparisons between essays and short stories to support his argument. In
each paragraph, the writer has different discussion and points by emphasizing some special
aspects of essays that make them different from short stories. First, essays are flexible and
changeable through the time. Second, essays are like human voice talking that is more informal
that articles. Third, they have a particular style of writing and usually cannot be reduced into a
summary. Fourth, they are less universal in their appeal than short stories and addressed to
educated middle-class people. Lastly, the author claims that personal essays convey the quality
of author’s mind and perspective through the shaping and shaving process of elucidating truth.
Hoaglan’s arguments are mostly based on his personal experience as an essayist and years of
teaching writing at various colleges. His interest in wilderness especially to the animals of the
wild seems to influence his style of writing. He define essay as a line between two sturdy poles
as mentioned in his article “this is what I think, and this is what I am” as a way to deliver the
author’s purpose and argument using one’s perspective and point of view (Hoaglan, 1976).

The way Hoaglan delivers his article is quite interesting and unique. He uses comparison
and gives illustration to emphasize points of his explanation. In paragraph 6, for instance, he
describes the viewpoint of “I” in the essay as chameleon as any narrator in fiction by claiming
that essays tell a story just like how short story stakes a claim to particular viewpoint. Regarding
his interest in animals as well as the wilderness, it seems that it influences the way he elaborates
his argument. His explanation on how the style of essayist resembles a nap on a piece of wool
that cannot be brushed flat shows that his writing style is indeed influenced by his interest on
wilderness. The way he compares essays to the animal kingdom while magazine articles belong
to vegetable kingdom further proves his tendency of using his interest in animals perhaps in hope
that his argument can be better understood and accepted by the readers.

There are some problems however, with Hoaglan’s argument. One of these concerns the
lack of further explanation and reasons given to strengthen his points. The aim of his article is to
inform the readers about the comparison of essays to literary works, particularly short stories and
the emphasis the preeminence of essays. In overall of his article however, this aim has not been
really achieved. This is because Hoaglan fails to present clear and more general explanation of
his argument. One would find it hard to understand his article because of the unusual way he
explains. His statements in the second paragraph line 16 “essays are associated with the way
young writer fashion a name” is rather confusing for the readers for there is no further
explanation of what he meant by that. Another confusing point is in the fourth paragraph when
the author considers essays “belong to the animal kingdom” while magazine article writer relates
with “the vegetable kingdom”. This brings a new puzzlement to the readers trying to figure out
its meaning. It is better for him to use a more general idea or to make an easy-to-understand
illustration to emphasize his points even if he is an expert in certain field so that the readers can
understand better.

Another problem of Hoaglan’s argument is that it mostly uses personal viewpoint that
leads to biased argument. He mainly uses his own opinion and personal experience to deliver his
arguments without giving enough evidence and facts from other works to support his opinion. It
basically relies on his own personal experience as an essayist thus making it not effective enough
to strengthen the argument. His writing style also portrays his tendency to use personal
background in explaining his points. Regarding his interest in wilderness that has been explained
before, Hoaglan’s writing style inclined to use philosophical explanation. However, his writing
style is not suitable to the intended audience who are probably academic people. The readers
have difficult time in trying to understand his unexpected explanation in comparing essays and
short stories to biology study of flaura and fauna.
 In addition, the conclusion that is drawn from the article is not justified. The author does
not give a proper conclusion paragraph at the end of his article. Instead of presenting the last
paragraph to conclude all the things that have been explained in his previous paragraphs,
Hoaglan introducing a new argument point by stating that a personal essay conveys the quality of
author’s mind through its tone and tumbling progression. Thus, the last paragraph of On Essays
article cannot be accepted as a justified conclusion. A good article always has a conclusion
paragraph to conclude all the things that have been explained in previous paragraphs, without
any exception.

In summary, while Hoaglan’s article is an interesting and unique piece of writing, he fails
to provide some evidences and proofs as well as further explanation to support and strengthen his
argument. The style of writing and the way he makes an illustration are also unusual and not
general thus making it a little bit hard for the readers to comprehend his points as well as to
justify the conclusion of the article. Despite some deficiencies in argument, use of evidence and
writing style, the article has provided some insights about the comparison of essays and short
stories and further knowledge about essay in particular