A Brief Introduction to Ethics

Your Ethical and Legal Obligations

OBLIGATIONS TO YOUR EMPLOYER

OBLIGATIONS TO THE PUBLIC

OBLIGATIONS TO THE ENVIRONMENT

OBLIGATIONS TO COPYRIGHT HOLDERS

GUIDELINES: Determining Fair Use

GUIDELINES: Dealing with Copyright Questions

ETHICS NOTE: Distinguishing Plagiarism from Acceptable Reuse of Information

The Role of Corporate Culture in Ethical and Legal Conduct

Understanding Ethical and Legal Issues Related to Social Media

GUIDELINES: Using Social Media Ethically and Legally

DOCUMENT ANALYSIS ACTIVITY: Presenting Guidelines for Using Social Media

Communicating Ethically Across Cultures

COMMUNICATING WITH CULTURES WITH DIFFERENT ETHICAL BELIEFS

COMMUNICATING IN COUNTRIES WITH DIFFERENT LAWS

THINKING VISUALLY: Principles for Ethical Communication

WRITER’S CHECKLIST

EXERCISES

CASE 2: The Ethics of Requiring Students To Subsidize a Plagiarism-Detection Service and

18

ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES are all around you in your work life. If you look at the website of any bike manufacturer, for example, you will see that bicyclists are always shown wearing helmets. Is this because bike manufacturers care about safety? Certainly. But bike makers also care about product liability. If a company website showed cyclists without helmets, an injured cyclist might sue, claiming that the company was suggesting it is safe to ride without a helmet.

Ethical and legal pitfalls lurk in the words and graphics of many kinds of formal documents. In producing a proposal, you might be tempted to exaggerate or lie about your organization’s accomplishments, pad the résumés of the project personnel, list as project personnel some workers who will not be contributing to the project, or present an unrealistically short schedule. In drafting product information, you might feel pressured to exaggerate the quality of the products shown in catalogs or manuals or to downplay their hazards. In creating graphics, you might be asked to hide a product’s weaknesses by manipulating a photo of it.

One thing is certain: there are many serious ethical and legal issues related to technical communication, and all professionals need a basic understanding of them.