Grammar Diagnostic

Does anybody besides English teachers care about grammar and punctuation?

According to Maxine Hairston's research, employers notice these common errors:

* I seen him come in.
* My grammar is fine, I don't need any review.
* Although other people might.

Employers assume people who make these errors have poor communication skills. Judge for yourself. Who would you hire?

Cover Letter 1

Cover Letter 2

Dear Joe,
I saw. Your ad in the payper. I got all the credenshuls your gonna need. Including eggsellent communication skills. If you higher me you wont be sorry. I have a strong work ethnic, and did i mention my great communicashun skills.

Dear Mr. Green,
You advertised for a Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician with excellent communication skills. I hope you will consider me a strong candidate for the position. In addition to Microsoft certification, I have a solid work ethic, and I can express myself clearly in speech and writing.

The first letter makes readers work too hard to get the message. Basic errors in spelling and grammar might make employers judge the writer as lazy, stupid, or uneducated. (See Cover Letters from Hell.) Poor writing skills can also kill your chances for promotion. The Business Roundtable calls writing a ticket to work.

How are your written communication skills? To find out, take the Grammar Diagnostic test. This counts for 20 out of 500 possible points. You may retake this diagnostic once. After that, if you wish to raise your score, take one of the other diagnostics.

To complete this CM220 assignment:

This is a 40-item test. After you take it, you will be asked to enter your name, your email address, and your instructor's address (cmunzenmaier@hamiltonia.edu).

When you finish, scroll until you can see the graph of the results, then print. Your scores in 14 different areas will be mailed to you, along with suggestions for areas you need to review.

To calculate your overall score, count the number of correct items (listed below the graph) and divide by 2. Write this score and your name on the printout of your graph and hand it in.

2. Not happy with your score? You have three choices:

Do review exercises to correct your weaknesses. Print them and hand them in.
Take this 42-item Grammar Diagnostic. When you follow the link to the 42-item Grammar Diagnostic for Successful College Writing, you will be asked to log in, but you can simply give your initials. You do not need to enter an instructor's email address, but if you want me to see the scores, send them to cmunzenmaier@hamiltonia.edu. After finishing, print your test.
Take Grammar Diagnostic C. Email your scores to yourself and to your instructor.

3. Looking for a challenge? Take one of these:

the Brooklyn College sentence diagnostic, which identifies faulty parallelism and other errors that make writing unclear

the Hartford Courant's challenge, intended to sort the true grammar gurus from the wannabes.

Copyright in these materials belongs to C. Munzenmaier © 2007.
Teachers are free to reproduce or modify them for nonprofit educational use.

home • syllabus •assignments • instructor • help • site map • contact