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Karyn N. Lewis

Professor S. Warycka

Written Argument 0502-443-01

Fall 20081

Ethics in Professional Technical Communication:

They do Apply

Because the role of the modern technical writer is expanding rapidly and will continue to do so,

the ethical scope of the technical writer's responsibility is comparably expanded too (Dombrowski). The

technical writer is now seen as an information developer in the formative stages of creating technical

information, as a communicator in disseminating information, as an interpreter in explaining information,

and as a usability expert in guiding the application of information. As a result, ethics have become

involved in technical writing in many ways: traditional and new, obvious and not so obvious. Before the

computerization of verbal and visual communication—the days of pencils and typewriters—technical

communicators were technical writers (Dragga 29). The writer’s only job was composing words. More

and more often, however, the modern technical writer is a technical communicator—in charge of

choosing typography and graphics as well as words, designing pages as well as checking spelling.

Technical writers have a whole new host of judgments to make, all of which affect a document’s

meaning: format, wording, paragraphing, and placement (Dyrud). This new ability to design information

has given the technical communicator a new rhetorical power, and with that new ethical obligations. We

now understand that contemporary technical communication is involved in communicating not only

technical information but also values, ethics, and tacit assumptions represented in goals. In a way they are

involved in accommodating the values and ethics of its many audiences—an understanding that is linked

to an awareness of the social nature of all discourse and the root interconnectedness of rhetoric and ethics.

As a trade-specific understanding of ethics is part of every field’s identity, rhetorical power is a source of

peril and conflict for technical communicators without guiding principles and practices, and the ethos

portrayed by technical communicators determines the value of their work, ethics do apply in professional

technical communication.

Although some technical writing is assumed to be so dry and formulaic that ethics is a non-issue

(Dyrud), a trade-specific understanding of ethics is part of every field’s identity and signifies professional

status, including that of technical communication (McBride). Adhering to ethical standards are part of

what identifies and in some sense legitimizes these professions—like law and medicine, for example. In

fact, one of the first things that aspiring lawyers and doctors must do is take the oath of their profession

that commits them to uphold certain ethical standards. The implied standard of conduct that stems from

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these ethics provides a certain level of credibility and sense of respect to the profession. While technical

communicators are not required to take an oath and ethical matters may be much more subtle in technical

communication than in professions dealing with law or medicine, ethical obligations still apply.

The newly appointed rhetorical power of the profession is a source of peril and conflict for

technical communicators because little research or guidance is available to identify the principles and

practices that would lead to ethical document design (Dragga 30). For instance, the STC Ethical

Guidelines for Technical Communicators is of little aid to ethical behavior with the exception of advising

a communicator to hold him/herself responsible for how well the audience understands the message—

buried as the fourth item in a bulleted list of seven professional guidelines with at least three having

nothing to do with ethics. Practicing professionals typically ignore these guidelines and other theoretical

discussions of ethics in technical communication, instead preferring books and magazines that identify

specific strategies for success on the job (Dragga 31). Of the professionals who are aware, only a small

portion have even accepted the STC code of ethics (Clark 190). Furthermore, technical communication is

not guided by purposes that are shared, which also add to the peril and conflict within the profession.

People who work primarily as scholars and teachers of technical communication tend to do so on the

basis of purposes that differ from those that work in the field for an organization (Clark 190). Those who

work primarily as professional technical communicators tend to discuss ethics in the immediate and

practical context of the experience and the interests of their particular organizations and profession (Clark

191). They advocate an ethics in which competence is the principle and market success the purpose that

guides good technical communication. Conversely, those who work primarily as scholars tend to discuss

ethics in a more abstract and theoretical context that addresses broader interests (Clark 192). They

advocate an ethics in which responsibility is the guiding principle and the protection of society’s interest

the guiding purpose. Finally, differing opinions on the ethics that guide the communication of technical

information also add to the peril and conflict within the profession. These opinions are divided amongst a

variety of personal viewpoints pertaining to common practices, specifications, reader’s responsibility,

writer’s responsibility, writer’s intentions, consequences, judgments, principles, or insufficient

information, all which may be influenced by psychological and social issues pertaining to each individual

(Dragga 35).

Technical communicators need to consider the ethos they present in their work in order to

communicate effectively. Success in any profession depends on the audience’s perspective, and

workplace politics and pressures inevitably affect the ethicality of an individual’s work. First of all, the

credibility of a message relies on the public character the communicator represents as judged by the

audience, tying into ethos, which is the “public reputation one acquires by acting in a particular societal

role” (Campbell 135). For example, a businesswoman’s specific way of conducting corporate meetings

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and of running her company as well as her way of acting as a businesswoman will determine the

professional ethos, and therefore the credibility, that she conveys. Adhering to a corporate ethos,

however, can potentially lead to ethical problems for the technical communicator, which is another reason

why technical communicators need to consider the ethos they present in order to communicate ethically.

Because technical communication as a discipline has historically been associated with organizations and

industry (Zappen 37), the ethos that a communicator adopts and the ethical standards that s/he upholds are

often decided by public policy. This delimits a communicator’s own ethos within the organization by

parroting company policies and standards—therefore reinforcing subservience as practitioners who apply

a prescribed set of skills to their work rather than as professionals who consider the implications of their

work as it’s produced. Lastly, we cannot assume that one group’s judgment represents a universally

agreed-upon perspective. The fragmentation of communities and standards is particularly necessary for

technical communicators to acknowledge, since they frequently communicate not only within an

organization but also with a broader, more diverse audience with different needs—the public. As Eve

Walsh Stoddard notes, “although we can define a writer’s ethos independently, it cannot be used

effectively without consideration of specific audience attitudes and interests,” and “different audiences

with different purposes will regard various types of intelligence and character negatively or positively”

(232).

Given the centrality of the art of discourse to human, social, and political endeavors, it is not at all

surprising that academics, preachers, politicians, entrepreneurs, and an almost incalculable host of others

have all attended closely to the problems and possibilities of human communication. This breadth of

attention to the power and art of discourse by groups and individuals with fundamentally different

purposes and orientations has produced a wide range of approaches to the study of human

communication. The development of a better understanding of the very act of communication in all

professions inherently involves ethical considerations. As a trade-specific understanding of ethics is part

of every field’s identity, rhetorical power is a source of peril and conflict for technical communicators

without guiding principles and practices, and the ethos portrayed by technical communicators determines

the value of their work, ethics do apply in professional technical communication.

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Works Cited:

Benson, Phillipa. “Writing Visually: Design Considerations in Technical Publications.” Technical

Communication 32 (1985): 35-39. Print.

Campbell, Charles P. “Ethos: Character and Ethics in Technical Writing.” IEEE Transactions on

Professional Communication 38 (1995). Print.

Clark, Gregory. “Ethics in Technical Communication: A Rhetorical Perspective.” IEEE Transactions on

Professional Communication 30.3 (1987): 190-195. Print.

Dombrowski, Paul M. Ethics in Technical Writing. Technical Writing, SUNY Institute of Technology,

n.d. Web. 30 Sep. 2008.

Dragga, Sam. “Is This Ethical? A Survey of Opinion on Principles and Practices of Document Design.”

Technical Communication First Quarter (1997): 29-38. Print.

Dyrud, Marilyn A. What About Ethics? Dept. of Communication, Oregon Institution of Technology,

1998. Web. 26 Oct. 2008.

McBride, Alicia. “Towards a Sense of Ethics for Technical Communication.” Orange Journal 3.2 (2005).

Web. 29 Sep. 2008.

STC.org: Ethical Principles. www.stc.org, 2007. Web. Sep. 30. 2008.

Stoddard, Eve Walsh. The Role of Ethos in the Theory of Technical Communicators. Ed. Carol M.

Barnum and Saul Carliner. New York: Macmillian, 1993: 15-41. Print.