Technicians and scientists seem to have lost their ability to communicate across specializations and with the general public. A study was conducted at McDonnell Douglas Corporation, in Missouri, to assess differences in communicative ability among accountants and computer programmers. The present study sought to determine the effects of a liberal arts education on communicative ability, i.e., whether courses in English and literature affected the communicative ability of accountants and computer programs. McDonnell Douglas Corporation provided their employee samples of accountants and computer programmers for the study, while Southern Illinois University's graduate school of arts and sciences provided the computer science and literature student samples. The Truell Comm Style instrument was administered to each of these four groups to measure the analytical, affiliative, conceptual, and activative characteristics of the respondents' communication styles. The primary communication style of the accountants, computer programmers, and computer science graduate students was analytical, while the primary style of the English/literature graduate students was conceptual. Accountants and computer programmers who studied more than three courses in English/literature showed higher conceptual ability. A general education, with copious amounts of liberal arts courses should be the central core of education, with a thoughtful connectedness of attached occupational courses. (AYC)