THERE IS NO ‘right way’ to write an essay. However, some essays are crafted in styles that are more pleasing to readers than others.

At school, I was taught or, rather was guided in the arts of essay writing not by my English language teacher, but by someone else who taught a quite different subject …

Back in the 1960s when I was attending my secondary school, Highgate School in north London, we took state examinations known as ‘O Levels’ (Ordinary Levels) when we were 15 to 16 years old. One of the subjects in which we were examined was ‘English Language’, which was distinct from another paper called ‘English Literature’.

Our English Language teacher in the year leading up to the O Level examination was Mr B. This man was far more interested in teaching the better students than assisting the others, including – and I am not being modest – me. Instead of concentrating on grammar and the standard of essay writing that would give us all a good chance of doing well in the paper, he wasted our lessons by filling the 45-minute periods with discussions of contemporary poetry. He was particularly keen on the poems of Ted Hughes (1930-1998) and Philip Larkin (1922-1985). His lengthy analyses of each line of these poets’ works were not only dull, but also helped put me off enjoying poetry. Furthermore, his learned discourses and discussions with the few people in my class, who enjoyed poetry, did nothing to improve the ability of the rest of his pupils to write essays competently.

After O Levels, we began studying for A Levels, the examinations required for admission to university. I chose three subjects: Mathematics, Physical Science (a combination of physics and chemistry), and biology. Our biology teacher was the ageing Mr Sellick. A confirmed bachelor, he told us the following when we reached the part of the syllabus that dealt with mammalian reproduction:

“I need not cover this. You boys know all about it.”

Mr Sellick was not only a biologist but also a naturalist. Like my PhD supervisor, Robert Harkness, Sellick emphasised the fact that a biologist should not only become obsessed with the minutiae of biological processes, but ought to constantly bear in mind the whole organism. One day, when several of us from his class were out walking with Mr Sellick, he stopped, stooped, picked up a leaf from the pavement, and asked us:

“What kind of tree did this fall from?”

When we told him we did not know, he said:

“It’s sad. You know all about DNA and RNA, but you cannot even recognise a leaf from a beech tree.”

Every week, we had to write essays in preparation for our biology A Level examination. Mr Sellick ploughed through them methodically, and on Saturday mornings, we had a one-and-a-half-hour lesson with him. During that double-length class, Mr Sellick used to sit behind his desk at the front of the classroom. In front of him, there would be a tall stack of papers – the essays we had written that week. One by one, he would go through the essays, reading short extracts from them, and then making a comment on each bit he had read out. He used to point out where something had been written well and clearly, or where the pupil had written something badly, and how it could be improved. I found these sessions very useful, and I believe they helped greatly to improve the way I write.

Many years later, in 1982, I qualified as a dentist at University College Hospital Dental School (‘UCH’). One of my teachers there was a dental technician, Mr C, who taught us the techniques involved in manufacturing removable dental prostheses. In addition, he assisted in the teaching of dental materials science – a subject in which we were examined and needed to write essays. After I qualified, I remained in touch with Mr C, who did some of my dental laboratory work for me after I went into general practice. Often, we spent time chatting when I delivered work to his home.

By the mid-1980s, students applying to dental school were required to have scored top grades at A Level, otherwise they were not admitted on the dental course. Interestingly, some of the best dentists I know, both in practice and in academia, were admitted to UCH in the 1970s with very low grades at A Level. They have done well despite their poorish performances at school. Those students were selected at a lengthy interview rather than because of their ability to score well at A Level.   

One day in the mid-1980s, Mr C told me that even though the dental students he was then teaching at UCH had achieved the highest grades at A Level, most of them were unable to write essays – they had neither needed to do that, nor had been taught how to write, at school. So, in the second year of their degree course, in addition to teaching them about prosthetics and dental materials, Mr C and his colleagues were having to teach these students with impressively high academic qualifications how to string sentences together clearly enough to produce coherent essays.

Although I have been writing essays since I was at school, I have discovered that only by writing frequently and on a variety of subjects has it become easier for me to write anything at all.