Presenter's Code of Ethics  

At many conferences we encounter speakers whose sole reason in presenting is to entice customers for their products or services. The goal is not, in itself, a bad one -- except when the speaker presents information that is biased.

William Horton Consulting (2001). Articles>Presentations>Ethics

Presenters Who Play In The Gray Risk Their Reputations

We all bend the rules and shade the truth in various ways. Presenters do it for all sorts of reasons: to inflate the importance of their work, to get people to like them, to make a story funnier. Tad Simons suggests there's a line in there somewhere that may not be wise to cross.

Simons, Tad. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations>Ethics

Professional Ethics

An online resource for publication and discussion of ethical cases, appropriate for integrating ethics issues into the classroom.

Professional Ethics (2003). Resources>Education>Ethics>Blogs

Promoting Ethical Practices within Institutions of Higher Education  

The public is continually bombarded with cases of wrongful practices in the work environment. As a result, the public has lost confidence in the ability of corporations and institutions of higher education to train individuals to behave in an ethical manner. Ethical practices in corporate America have resulted in institutions of higher education revisiting their ethical practices, which includes creating a learning environment where students develop the necessary skills to become ethical leaders and citizens. Many colleges and universities have adopted codes of ethics that emphasize core ethical principles and standards for their employees.

Weegar, Mary Anne. Association for Business Communication (2007). Articles>Education>Ethics

Remember Enron and Andersen!

You work for a mid-sized company that has about 700 employees. It is Wednesday afternoon. You learn from a reliable source that your company has just been bought out, but the public announcement will not be made until Friday afternoon. The company’s stock is currently selling at $15 per share. It will certainly jump to $20 within hours of the announcement. You and your spouse have been saving over the past year to buy a house, and have a sizable nest egg of nearly $20,000 in the bank. Your company already has over 20 million shares of its stock outstanding, and tens of thousands of shares are traded every day. No one is likely to notice if an employee were to buy 1000 shares. What do you do? Explain your actions and reasons in writing.

Lannon, John M. Pearson Education (2003). Academic>Course Materials>Ethics

Replay TV

You've all heard of TiVo. Sure you have. TiVo is the hard-disk video recorder that automatically records all of your favorite shows. Then there's ReplayTV, the other leading brand. Late fall 2001, ReplayTV crossed over a line that should never have been crossed, one that threatened the future of consumer products.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2002). Articles>User Interface>Ethics>Assessment

A Response To Patrick Moore's 'Questioning The Motives Of Technical Communication and Rhetoric: Steven Katz's 'Ethic Of Expediency''    

In my 1992 College English article 'The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust' [1], I looked at the implications of a Nazi memo whose sole purpose was to improve the efficiency of the gassing vans, in order to begin to try to understand and discuss the negative uses and ethical abuses to which technical communication, and deliberative rhetoric generally, could be taken by the powerful and unscrupulous. In 'Questioning the Motives of Technical Communication and Rhetoric: Steven Katz's 'Ethic of Expediency'' [2], Patrick Moore accuses me of ignoring alternate translations, citing out of context, and focusing on the negative meaning of words to make my case. The point at issue in these charges, I believe, is whether (and to what degree) Aristotle meant to base deliberative discourse on 'expediency.' I will take each of these charges up one at a time to explore them more thoroughly, discuss their interrelations, and then conclude with a few observations of my own.

Katz, Steven B. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Ethics>Theory

A Response to the Special Issue on Ethics    

Whatever one claims to have said in oneï¿s narrative, whether ethical explication or narrative self-building, is not always under the selfï¿s control. The practice of self-knowledge argued for here is more accurately self-formation, a will to power over the self. What these authors propose is a valuable and powerful act of self-making through representation. This formation of narrative self-representation connects actions with identity, forging identity from fragmented memory. It requires an attempt to tell oneï¿s story as honestly as possible, and to resist narrating oneï¿s self as one desires to be seen. In the process, these authors assert, our self learns how to see itself through the lens of retrospection.

Salvo, Michael J. Technical Communication Quarterly (2001). Articles>TC>Ethics

Responses to 'Following the Doctor's Orders'  

This article presents reader responses to a hypothetical dilemma published in the February 2000 issue of Intercom.

Intercom (2000). Articles>Workplace>Ethics

Responses to 'In the Company of Lawyers'  

This article presents reader responses to an ethics case published in the March 2002 issue of Intercom.

Bryan, John G. Intercom (2002). Articles>Workplace>Ethics

Responses to 'In the Gyres'  

In the September/October 2000 issue, Intercom printed a hypothetical dilemma entitled 'In the Gyres.' A summary of this story is reproduced, followed by reader responses.

Bryan, John G. Intercom (2000). Articles>Workplace>Ethics

Responses to 'Who's Policing the Policy Makers?'  

This article features reader responses to a hypothetical dilemma printed in the April 2001 issue of Intercom.

Wiles, Debbie. Intercom (2001). Articles>Workplace>Ethics

Responses to "Alienation"  

In the April 2003 issue, Intercom printed a hypothetical dilemma by John G. Bryan entitled 'Alienation.' A summary of this story appears in the box on this page; reader responses appear below. The responses do not reflect the views of STC's ethics committee and may have been edited for length.

Bryan, John G. Intercom (2003). Articles>Workplace>Ethics>Security

The Samples Conundrum  

Olive examines the ethical and practical problems associated with providing writing samples to potential employers and suggests possible solutions to these problems.

Olive, Eric G. Intercom (2001). Careers>Interviewing>Ethics

Shades of Gray: Using Value Analysis and Ten Core Values to Resolve Ethical Conflicts in Technical Communication  

Ethical conflicts often defy black-and-white solutions. But gray can be slippery. This workshop demonstrates how to use value analysis to clarify ethical conflicts in technical communication. The presenters identify 10 core values that underlie technical communication and show how these values can be used to support objective analysis and resolve ethical conflicts. Participants explore ethical dilemmas 'hands-on' through small-group discussions and role-playing vignettes on selected conflict scenarios. This session follows up the 'Grayscale' workshop conducted at the 43rd STC conference-with all new scenarios!

Voss, Daniel W. and Lori A. Allen. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>TC>Ethics

Sharpening the Focus: A Workshop on Ethics and Technical Communication  

Increasingly, technical communicators are confronting ethical issues in the workplace. Conflicts arise that appear to defy black-and-white solutions. To render every verdict 1. Workshop Instructions. as 'gray'' however, begs the question. This workshop exposes participants to the use of value analysis to clarify ethical conflicts in technical communication. It also gives them the opportunity to explore ethical issues “hands-on” through small-group discussions and a series of roleplaying vignettes on selected conflict scenarios.

Voss, Daniel W. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>Workplace>Ethics

A Slippery Slope: Using Value Analysis to Resolve Ethical Conflicts in Technical Communication  

Increasingly, technical communicators are confronting ethical issues in the workplace. Conflicts arise that appear to defy black-and-white solutions. To render every verdict as 'gray,' however, begs the question. Clear direction in the face of thorny ethical dilemmas requires objective value analysis, to logically reduce such dilemmas to clearly defined value conflicts. Once these conflicts are understood, the proper ethical path can more readily be discerned. This paper addresses the need for specific, real-world ethical guidelines for technical communicators. It also explores the possibility of developing a value analysis model to establish such guidelines. A typical model is applied to four representative ethical conflicts.

Voss, Daniel W. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>TC>Ethics>Assessment

Spam on the 'Net: An Ethical Dilemma  

Archee examines the ethical and practical problems associated with receiving and sending unsolicited e-mail.

Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2001). Articles>Workplace>Ethics>Email

Strengthening the Ethics and Visual Rhetoric of Sales Letters    

This article provides details about a comprehensive assignment for teaching sales letters in a business communication course. During the past 5 years, this assignment has evolved, moving beyond one that focused almost exclusively on strategies for making the letter persuasive, and therefore effective, to an expanded form that devotes time and attention to the ethics and visual rhetoric of the letter. In addition to composing a sales letter, each student is required to write a detailed, thoughtful analysis of the ethics and visual appeal of his or her letter.

Williams, Linda Stallworth. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Correspondence>Ethics

A Study of Beliefs and Behaviors Regarding Digital Technology    

This study analyzed individual perceptions of various situations involving actions likely to be considered unethical by most people. It explored perceptions of the acceptability of parallel technology-based and non-technology-based vignettes, self-rated behavior regarding the survey scenarios and consistency between self-rated behavior and the level of acceptance of the vignettes. The responses from 453 participants were analyzed by age, gender, ethnicity and amount of weekly access to computers at home.The participants were more accepting of the technology-based survey items and were also more likely to engage in those behaviors than the non-technology items; however, the participant responses indicated a low level of acceptance for the scenarios and only a minimal likelihood that they would participate in them. Additional findings across the comparison groups are reported and discussed.

Poole, Dawn. New Media and Society (2007). Articles>Technology>Ethics>Surveys

Success is a Many-Splendored Thing  

Managers of four of the Society's professional interest committees (PICs) launch discussions of what the new STC ethics guidelines mean to the areas of professional practice their PICs represent: Marketing, Scientific Communication, International Technical Communication, and Consulting and Independent Contracting.

Atkinson, Jennifer M. and Lee Taylor. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>TC>Ethics

Teaching Ethics Isn't Enough: The Challenge of Being Ethical Teachers    

Rather than acting on less examined beliefs, I am personally comfortable acting on ethics that have been burnished by repeated polishing from my colleagues, community, and profession. Let us use our professional conferences and journals to further that conversation.

Kienzler, Donna S. JBC (2004). Articles>Education>Ethics

Technical Writing and Publication Ethics  

A discussion of what one must and must not do in peer-reviewed publishing.

Fang, Shu-Cherng. North Carolina State University (2002). Articles>Publishing>Ethics