Leading and Misleading the Reader:
Ethical issues of Technical Communication
UNIT- 2
UNIT 2
Ethics at work
Ethics frameworks
Ethics for students
How is ethics related to technical communication?
Writing Ethically
Plain Language
QUESTIONS
Q.N.1. How can you ensure the ethical communication?
Q.N.2.How is ethics related to technical
communication?
Q.N.3. What are the types of citation?
Q.N.4. What should you Consider in the citation?
WRITE SHORT NOTES ON:
A.Ethics
B.Plagiarism
C.Plain language
D.Patent
E. Trademarks
F.Copyright
Ethics
• Moral principles that govern a person's
behaviour or the conducting of an activity
moral code, morals,morality,moral stand,moral
principles
• the branch of knowledge that deals with moral
principles.
PLAGIARISM:
The practice of taking someone else's work or
ideas and passing them off as one's own.
Plagiarism means using someone else's work
without giving them proper credit. In academic
writing, plagiarizing involves using words, ideas,
or information from a source without citing it
correctly. In practice, this can mean a few different
things.
Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism—whether intentional or unintentional—occurs when a
writer passes off the words or ideas of others as his or her own. Students
plagiarize for a number of reasons. Some take the easy way out and
buy a paper and submit it as if it were their own. This intentional plagiarism
compromises a student’s education as well as the educational process
as a whole. Instructors assign papers for a reason, and if you do not do the
work, then you miss a valuable opportunity to learn. For most students,
however, plagiarism is unintentional.
plagiarism is Theft.
Tips for avoiding Plagiarism
You can avoid plagiarism by keeping careful notes and by following these
guidelines:
• give yourself enough time to do your research and to write your paper.
Do not put yourself in a position where you do not leave enough time to give
your assignment the attention it requires.
• Begin with a research plan. Make a list of the steps you intend to follow,
and estimate how much time they will take.
• ask for help. If you run into trouble, don’t panic. Ask your instructor or a
reference librarian for help.
• do not cut and paste downloaded text directly into your paper.
Summarize and paraphrase this source material first. Boldface or highlight
quotation marks so that you will recognize quotations when you are ready to
include them in your paper.
• set up a system that enables you to keep track of your sources. Create
..
one or more files on your computer where you can store downloaded
source information. (If you photocopy print sources, maintain a file for
this material.) Create another set of files for your notes. Make sure you
clearly name and date these files so that you know what is in them and
when they were created.
• • include full source information for all paraphrases and summaries as well
as for quotations. As you write, clearly differentiate between your ideas
and those of your sources. Do not forget to include documentation. If you
try to fill in documentation later, you may not remember where your
information came from.
• Keep a list of all the sources you have downloaded or have taken
information from. Make sure that you always have an up-to-date list of the
sources you are using.
Ethics at work p.60
The link between ethics and communication has been debated
for a thousand years, beginning with Aristotle and his
comments about the good character (or “ethos”) of the person
speaking or writing giving rise to trust. Aristotle said that the
truth of any situation would always come out eventually and
that listeners could judge the character of the speaker from his
or her words. Quintilian, a Roman rhetorician, went so far as
to say that only a good man would be believable. However,
recent history suggests instead that ethically challenged
individuals can be quite believable. The key here may be that
they really believed what they wrote or said at the time they
Ethics frameworks p.60
Ethics is an abstract term. To think through ethical
decisions, we sometimes look to “frameworks” or
groups of principles that have been developed to
guide decision making. In the medical field, for
example, Beauchamp and Childress (2001)
identified four principles for making biomedical
decisions:
four principles for making biomedical decisions
A. Respect for autonomy
B.Beneficence (balance benefits and risks for the
patient)
C. Non malfeasance (avoid causing harm)
D. Justice (treat people fairly)
Five common ethical frameworks
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara
University (California) summarizes five common ethical
frameworks that span a wide variety of contexts.
1. The utilitarian approach: choose the action that produces
the greatest good and the least harm
2. The rights approach: choose the action that protects the
moral rights (freedom, privacy, choice, information) of those
who are affected by the decision.
con...
3.The fairness or justice approach: treat everyone equally or
fairly
4. The common good approach: choose the action that
contributes most to the common good
5. The virtue approach: choose the action that is consistent
with virtuous values such as honesty, compassion, tolerance,
integrity, and prudence(carefulness)
Ethics for students p.63
This statement covers a lot of ground by using
general terms such as “free inquiry, creativity,
and an open exchange of ideas” and by
requiring students to “use university resources
and facilities in appropriate ways consistent
with their purpose.”
“collective commitment to mutual respect”
Styles of citation
You can find all sorts of style guides that will tell you
how to format references according to the
Modern Language Association (MLA) rules,
the American Psychological Association (APA) rules,
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) of the University
of Chicago Press, and
the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style
Consider the following in citation p.63
page numbers accurately,
dates that you accessed a web page
quotations from the original sources
accurately, and
details of publication.
How is ethics related to technical communication? p64
Technical communication changes the dynamic usually
associated with plagiarism of essays and reports at school
because technical communication fulfills a different
function. The point of a technical document is not to show off
what you know to an audience already familiar with what you
are writing about. Instead, much technical
communication aims to educate and inform
readers about how to operate a piece of equipment
or a software application
Copyright, Trademarks, and Patents P.65
Copyright refers to the right to copy or otherwise reproduce original
works yourself and the right to assign permission to make copies to
others. This right applies to original works of literature, film, music,
and art. Originality can be a hard concept to determine—think of
remixes of old songs. Which part is original, and which part is new?
Another difficult part of copyright is defining what a “substantial”
part of it would be: one rule is that you can photocopy for reference
one chapter of a book provided it amounts to less than 20 per cent of
the book it was taken from.
Copyright
the right to copy
Copyright refers to the legal right of the owner
of intellectual property. In simpler terms, copyright
is the right to copy. This means that the original
creators of products and anyone they give
authorization to are the only ones with the exclusive
right to reproduce the work.
Trademarks
Trademarks refer to items that establish a brand: slogans, product
names, packaging, and symbols. As a technical writer, you would
probably encounter this in your references to existing trademarks
held by your company or another company’s products that work
with your company’s products; a reference to Microsoft® Word
should have the registered trademark symbol (®) affixed to it, at least.
The other trademark symbols are ™ (used for products) and SM (used
for services).
A trademark
A trademark can be any word, phrase,
symbol, design, or a combination of these
things that identifies your goods or services.
It's how customers recognize you in the
marketplace and distinguish you from your
competitors. The word “trademark” can refer to
both trademarks and service marks
Patents
Patents are used to protect inventions such as new
manufacturing products and processes. Usually, you would
encounter them only by referring to them in texts that you
write. Recently, some companies have patented human genetic
sequences that they alter. dekalb is a new type of corn
developed by Monsanto, for example, and you
should refer to it using the registered trademark symbol.
patent
a government authority or licence conferring a
right or title for a set period, especially the sole
right to exclude others from making, using,
or selling an invention.
copyright,licence, legal protection,right,
performing right, permit
What is not copyrightable
Writing ethically
Although it may seem obvious that what you
write should be accurate and true, in practice,
there is considerable leeway(margin) between
what may be factually correct and how you
represent the facts in the documents you
create.
Plain language guidelines
At its heart, plain language involves an ethical
relationship between the reader and writer. As a writer,
you must want to communicate with your readers
clearly. To do this, you will take up their point of view
and write what has been called “reader-based prose”
or prose that is organized around what the reader needs
to know.
Plain Language P.71
Language that is clear and
easy to understand, with no
ambiguity or unnecessarily
difficult words. Use plain
language instead of jargon.
You will take some time to investigate who is reading your
work:
What level of knowledge do they have?
What is their cultural background?
What is their income level?
What do they want to know?
What information will they use most frequently?
What questions are they asking about the topic you are
writing about?
Ten tips to make your writing easier to read p.107
At the word level:
1. Use words that are accurate, appropriate, and
familiar.
2. Use technical jargon sparingly;(amply) eliminate
business jargon altogether.
3. Use active verbs most of the time.
4. Use strong verbs (not nouns) to carry the weight
At the sentence level
5. Tighten your writing (eliminate unnecessary
words).
6. Vary sentence length and sentence structure.
7. Use parallel structure.
8. Put your readers in your sentences.
9. Begin most paragraphs with topic sentences.
10. Use transitions to link ideas.
THANK YOU
HAVE A GOOD DAY
