Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

At the risk of offending, I’m posing a question here that maybe some of you can weigh in on with your theories. Though not something that keeps me awake at night, my curiosity grows year by year—in fact, every time we post a job opening and go through the interviewing process as we’ve just now done.

Question: Why do journalism majors have much weak grammar skills than English majors? Or, let me put that more positively: Why do English majors have much stronger grammar skills than journalism majors?

Here’s how I stumbled on this surprising situation: As a communication training firm, our company provides a variety of writing courses such as business writing, technical writing, proposal writing, and so forth. So as you can imagine, part of our assessment process for ALL job applicants is to test their writing and grammar skills—despite the fact that most résumés for a consulting position list a master’s degree or doctoral degree. About half of those applying for such positions have a degree in either English, journalism, or mass communication.

English majors score, on average, about 25 percent higher on the grammar tests than the average test taker does. Journalism and mass communication majors score no higher than the average test taker (say, a non-degreed administrative assistant, a bookkeeper, or an engineer).

Possible theories as to why the discrepancies:

1. Curricula for English majors require more grammar courses and reward students that meet recognized grammar standards.
2. English majors study more poetry and understand that sentence structure and punctuation dictate meaning.
3. Journalism majors study interviewing style, reporting technique, and getting the unique angle rather than writing style.
4. Scrambling to meet deadlines and competing for breaking news, journalists value speed over precision and clarity in their writing.
5. Grammar classes aren’t as engaging as interviewing classes.

If anybody out there has a different theory on this strange situation that has surfaced through the years of interviewing and testing job applicants, please speak up.

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