Chapter 2
This chapter, a brief introduction to ethics is one of the most interesting chapters I’ve
read so far. Being an IT student, I don’t usually get deep on the issue of ethics, but this chapter
gave me an entirely different perspective. The quote that got my attention was “As a
representative of an organization, and especially as an employee communicating technical
information, you will frequently confront ethical questions.”(22) This is true to an extent in the
IT positions that I’ve worked in. When I get the job at first, I get several ethical emails with
technical jargon about policy and how we must coordinate ourselves as a member of the
organization. Other than that, I’m really not confronted with much ethical questions in regards
to my position.
When it comes to other positions though, the ethicality of something that could make or
break someone’s life is super important. As the text says, “According to the U.S. Consumer
Product Safety Commission (2013), more than 4,500 deaths and 14 million injuries occur each
year in the United States because of consumer products—not counting automobiles and
medications.” In cases like this, product testing, manufacture and communication are essential
to the company’s wellbeing, and in turn the consumers. This is when I understand how
technical writing really plays its part in regard to communicating a policy ethically. If some of
the technical writing in the policies is even a little off, it seems like companies will be extremely
liable.
The obligations to the environment part of the chapter really struck a nerve with me. Us
as human beings have been so damaging to the environment, and we really should serve an
obligation to the environment as human beings. Even things in our daily work could affect the
environment, like the text states “Yet you will often know how your organization’s actions
affect the environment.” I have been aware of this in my past jobs even though the work I’m
doing has relatively zero effect on the environment. With technical writing clarifying our
obligations to the environment, clean fuels usually costing more than dirty ones, organizations
in general have done a good job in protecting the environment.
The biggest ethicality in writing I’ve dealt with is plagiarism, and that stemming from an
obligation to copyright holders has never struck my mind in the past. As somebody who
originally writes a topic or essay, that then becomes your work, and you are now a copyright
holder, which makes sense when it comes to schoolwork. Especially in this class where you’re
required to sign a document stating all of your work is original and then you check mark it in go.
Being caught for plagiarism is not just plagiarism in itself, but an ethical requirement when you
sign up to write work that is within your own merit.
In conclusion, the differentiation of examples such as plagiarism being an ethical and
not a legal issue really clarify the meaning of ethicality within writing to me. A plagiarist could
get dropped from a class or fired, but will not serve jail time. Copyright may be applied ethically
but not legally, and that’s a thin line to draw.