The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, tells the story of how he arrived at Ruskin College, Oxford, as a mature student alongside several other workers without any higher education. In the opening session, the tutor gave out a list of books and the first essay title. It was an invitation to discuss Lord Acton’s famous dictum: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” One lorry driver packed his bags and went home immediately.

The very thought of writing an essay, especially after a break from studying, sends a cold shiver down the spine of even the most courageous. After all, in adult life intelligent action is everything, but the essay is a rarity, an artefact from schooldays. Imagine office workers returning to work after a break, only to be told by the boss that they must write an essay entitled “What I did in my holidays”, or the fire brigade being asked to scribble 500 words on “A day in the life of a penny” before switching on the hosepipes.

This year, I have marked the writings of five-year-olds, 16-year-old GCSE pupils, undergraduates, postgraduates, experienced teachers returning for courses, as well as masters dissertations and doctoral theses. I write virtually every day of my life, so it is as common an experience for me as eating breakfast.

Some science teachers, by contrast, last wrote continuous prose on a regular basis when they were teenagers. As Lord Acton might have said:

“Familiarity tends to breed contempt, but absolute unfamiliarity breeds stark, screaming, bowel-wrenching terror.”

Oddly enough, similar failings can be found in both GCSE candidates and mature professionals returning to the art of writing. English teachers despair when their pupils ramble off the topic and begin to write about what they wish had been the subject rather than what has actually been set. A common criticism of dodgy PhD theses is that they too have strayed off course, sometimes via 50 pages of drivel. The reader expects the title to be honoured, so “stick to the topic” is not a bad policy, whatever your assignment.

“Say what you mean” is another universal requirement. I have lost count of the number of times somebody - child or adult - has said, after I have queried a word or a phrase, “Well, that’s not really what I meant.”

Desperate to hand the wretched piece in and get on with their lives, people often grab the first words that come to mind, when even a brief reflection would produce something that would be much more appropriate. Loose language can kill a piece stone dead within two paragraphs. One cardinal sin when writing about education is to festoon the piece with taken-for-granted phrases such as “good practice” and “successful schools”, based upon the author’s personal prejudices rather than any clear definition.

But to think only about a written text is to start at the wrong end. Writing begins with research. To be in a strong position, the writer needs to have evidence from reading, personal experience and reflection. Essays and assignments based on waffle are easily rumbled. For example, an unsubstantiated sentence that begins “It is well known that...” will usually produce a prickly underlining, or comments such as “Who says?”, or “Evidence?”.

Systematic study is not just a matter of hard work. The habit has to be re-created, so a regular time is desirable, which can be especially difficult for those with strong family commitments. Are you a lark or an owl? Early morning is good for those who are not mentally in pyjamas till noon, while evening ravers find later sessions suit them better. It is surprising how productive an hour or even thirty minutes every single day can be over a period of weeks.

Being systematic is vital. I always advise people to keep notes as precisely as they can. Nothing is more irksome than having to go back and trawl through a library full of books, or even through the Internet to find an exact quote, an author’s initials, or a book title. Ten seconds of precision can save hours of angry frustration.

It is also important to keep clear in your notes exactly what is a direct quotation and what is your own personal reflection on the topic, otherwise you risk being accused of plagiarism when someone else’s prose appears as your own. Nowadays, markers only have to put a suspicious phrase into an Internet search engine and the plagiarist, deliberate or unwitting, is exposed. Even worse is when a lifted phrase has been ill understood: “A varimax rotation produced seven orthogonal factors with roots greater than unity, and I, er, think that was a jolly good thing.”

That said, my own experience is that those people who persist, recognising that fear of study is widespread and not unique to them, will often do well. I love our degree days, because the audience is full of kids clapping their courageous mums and dads as they traipse proudly across the stage, their terror finally licked.

TED’S TIPS

FIVE BLUNDERS TO AVOID

1 Avoid cliches whenever possible; readers become sick of trite expressions, (but then again, at the end of the day, every cloud has a silver lining).

2 Don’t fall into the ‘syndrome’ syndrome, clutching uncritically at current buzzwords.

3 Try not to write in pretentious language just to try to impress. Always try to say what you mean as plainly and as unambiguously as possible.

4 Make sure your writing has a beginning, a middle, and an end; otherwise reading it can be like threading a maze.

5 Finishing can be harder than starting; an essay is only an interim statement, not the final word, so be prepared to draw crisply to an end, rather than dribble on for ever.