Ethics is one of the most important considerations in technical communication. When it’s your task to help others understand an object, process, or procedure clearly and effectively, then it’s also your responsibility to do so in an ethical fashion.

What does it mean to communicate ethically with regard to technical communication? There is often confusion, because the concept of ethics itself is often complex. Many people equate an ethical person with a good person, a person who does the right thing. However, the concept of “right” is complicated as well. For example, if you find a dollar on the floor, what’s the right thing to do?

• Would you ask people nearby if anyone lost a dollar? What if the person who says “yes” is lying and didn’t lose the dollar? Was it right, then, to give the dollar to them? What about the person who really lost the dollar? How do you know who lost it?
• Would you turn the dollar into lost and found?
• Would you keep the dollar, with the rationalization that you probably lost a dollar in the past, and this is just karma returning that dollar to you?
• Would you give the dollar to charity with the rationalization that by doing so, at least you know it will do some good?

Any of these potential answers might feel right. As you can see, a criterion such as “right” or “good” really isn’t the best to use to judge more complex ethical problems such as you might find in technical communication situations.

Also, note that all of the potential responses to finding that dollar are legal. But just because something is legal doesn’t mean that it’s ethical. In the past, in the United States, it was legal for health care insurance companies to deny coverage to persons who had health problems. That is, if a person had a heart attack and did not have insurance, then they would not be able to purchase insurance afterward, even though it was clear that they would not be able to afford health care without health insurance. Such a practice was common and legal, but it was not at all ethical to deny sick persons the ability to afford the health care they needed.

Key Concepts: Rights, Justice, Utility, and Care

According to ethicist Manuel G. Velasquez, there are four basic kinds of moral standards:^[1]

1. Rights: This standard “look[s] at individual entitlements to freedom of choice and well-being.”
2. Justice: This standard “look[s] at how the benefits and burdens are distributed among people.”
3. Utility: “The inclusive term used to refer to the net benefits of any sort produced by an action. This standard favors the solution that yields ‘the greatest net benefits to society or impose[s] the lowest net costs.'”
4. Care: With regard to the “ethic of care…the moral task is not to follow universal and impartial moral principles, but instead to attend and respond to the good of particular concrete persons with whom we are in a valuable and close relationship. Compassion, concern, love, friendship, and kindness are all sentiments or virtues that normally manifest this dimension of morality.”

You may have noticed that these standards can quite easily contradict each other. Below is a simple example to which you can apply these standards of morality to help you consider them more fully.

You have an in-person technical communication class at a local college. It meets twice a week at 8:30 a.m., and you attend the scheduled class periods. One of your classmates, Percival, falls asleep in class. More than that, he snores loudly while the professor is trying to teach. In the first class period this problem manifested itself, and the professor tried calling on Percival to keep his attention. Then the professor nicely told Percival to get a drink of water to wake himself up. This worked the first time, but subsequently, Percival kept falling asleep and snoring during class. The snoring was really distracting, and everyone found it hard to concentrate in this environment. After a few classes of Percival’s snoring and the instructor and classmates trying to prod him to stay awake, the professor came prepared with a solution. At the first loud, earsplitting snore, the professor pulled out a water gun, aimed, fired, and SPLAT! Percival was awake. The class laughed uproariously, and then got back to business. Every time Percival snored, the professor shot water in Percival’s face. It was still somewhat difficult to concentrate, with the professor water-gunning Percival every 15 minutes or so, but it was very entertaining, and the instructor hoped that Percival got the message about not sleeping in class.

This scenario is a little out of the ordinary, but lends itself to evaluation by applying the four moral standards. The professor’s solution to the problem is effective, at least in this one instance. But how does it stack up to an ethical evaluation?

• Rights – People in contemporary societies have a wide variety of rights. For example, students have the right to a conducive learning environment. So, on the one hand, students have the right to attend class and not have to fight through Percival’s snoring to hear the professor’s lecture. On the other hand, students have the right to attend class and not be shot at with a water gun.

• Justice – The benefit to the professor’s solution to the problem is that it is effective. It stops Percival’s snoring through class and making learning difficult for the other students. It also seems, at first, to bring the class together against a common distraction and provide some temporary amusement. Everyone is having fun at Percival’s expense. But on the other hand, students have a right to attend class and not be subjected to abuse, such as being shot at with a water gun, which is outside of the treatment a student might expect from a professor. And it is humiliating. It goes against philosopher Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”^[2]  Most people would not accept that all students sleeping and snoring in class should be attacked with a water gun. Certainly, Percival never consented to this violation of his rights. With regard to justice, at first the water gun accomplishes the goal, but it’s also distracting and makes other students wonder if they will receive the same treatment. Suddenly, the professor’s disrespect for Percival can easily be generalized to disrespect for anyone. Morale can drop. The students can lose respect for the professor, and then the learning environment is compromised. The entire class suffers, and the learning outcomes also suffer, because the professor made the decision to employ a water gun.
• Utility – One of the ways to look at utility is to ask the question, “Is there a better solution that helps everyone achieve the desired outcomes?” Or at least, is there a solution that minimizes the disadvantages to the larger population? In this case, yes. At most institutions, the professor has a variety of ways to deal with a disruptive student. After informing a student of the consequences of repeating their disruptive actions, the professor may call campus security to remove the student. The professor may also contact the student’s academic advisor to discuss a solution, and at some institutions, the professor can have the student withdrawn from the class. While official solutions may not be as dramatic and quickly effective as water-gunning as student, they do protect all students’ dignity and right to a safe environment conducive to learning.
• Care – A professor might be frustrated trying to deal with students do not want to be in the class and are actively working against the professor’s efforts to do their job. And it might even be understandable that the professor wants to pull out a water gun and just solve the problem and blow off a little steam. But the professor’s job is to support the class, the academic department, and the institution. Shooting Percival with a water gun does not show care.

Through analysis and application of ethical standards to the professor’s action, you can see that water-gunning Percival is unethical, even though he is disrupting the class. It violates the rights of the student and can negatively affect the class by lowering morale, which in turn may rob all students in the class of an environment conducive to learning. And finally, there are better, accepted channels to use to deal with this situation.

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Percival’s scenario is simple, but as you can see, it still offers many ways to look at a situation in terms of ethical behavior. Analyzing any situation with regard to ethics should take time and care so that the best evaluation can be produced.

Here are an additional Four Scenarios for Ethical Evaluation ^[3]

Faulty Communication and Real Consequences

In 1986, the spaceship Challenger exploded, and a communication failure partially caused that disaster. There was a problem with an O-ring seal in the shuttle’s construction. Engineers noticed the O-ring problems, but crucial information about the O-rings was not highlighted in memos and reports. Maybe the engineers were just poor writers who did not consider their audience, which included non-technical managers in decision-making roles. Maybe the engineers felt pressured to achieve success and did not want to admit a problem. No matter the reason, many communications referencing this issue did not emphasize its severity. For example, one engineer stated that there was “no reason to suspect that the primary O-ring would fail after motor ignition transient. He said the secondary O-ring would seal within the period after ignition from 0 to 170 milliseconds. From 170-330 milliseconds, the probability of the sealing of the secondary O-ring was reduced. From 330 to 600 milliseconds, there was only a slight chance the secondary seal would hold.” ^[5] By emphasizing positive information up front, the writer de-emphasized the potential problem and thus acted unethically.

However, one engineer, Roger Boisjoly, stated in a memo that the O-ring problem was serious: “If the same scenario should occur in a field joint (and it could), then it is a jump ball as to the success or failure of the joint because the secondary O-ring cannot respond to the clevis opening rate and may not be capable of pressurization. The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order – loss of human life….It is my honest and very real fear that if we do not take immediate action to dedicate a team to solve the problem with the field joint having the number one priority, then we stand in jeopardy of losing a flight along with all the launch pad facilities.” ^[4] Boisjoly was later given the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, to acknowledge his ethical communication in this situation.

Ethical Presentation of Information

There are many factors that contribute to the ethical presentation of information.

Placement

Where you place certain information in a document can affect a reader’s understanding of the relative weight or seriousness of that information. For example, hiding some crucial bit of information in the middle of a long paragraph deep in a long document seriously de-emphasizes the information. On the other hand, putting a minor point in a prominent spot (say the first item in a bulleted list in a report’s executive summary) tells your reader that it is crucial. Ethical writing, then, involves  presenting information so that your target audience will understand the relative importance of that information and can act accordingly.

Completeness

Information needs to be developed and complete enough for your purpose and audience. There are multiple aspects to completeness.

• Include information from many sources – to show that you’ve examined the topic from as many angles as possible. Using a variety of sources will help you avoid potential bias that can occur from relying on only a few experts. For example, if you were writing a report on the real estate market in central New York state, you would not collect data from only one broker’s office.
• Include important contradictory information – don’t withhold key, relevant information that works against your focus. For example, in researching ways your company can increase employee morale, you find that bringing in an outside expert has the most potential impact the greatest change. However, this is the most costly solution, and you know that your employer counts costs. Or, you’re employed to research a report for a parents’ group that wants to change the local school policy requiring all students to be vaccinated. You find a few sources against vaccination, but most research indicates that vaccines do more good than harm. In both situations, ethical communication requires that you include all research, placed appropriately in the document.
• Include all necessary information – based on your purpose and audience. For example, you may be asked to develop a maintenance manual for a product. You know that your company also sells maintenance supports and relies on that income as an important revenue stream. You’ve heard informal comments about not including certain information in the manual so that users will purchase maintenance support. However, ethical communication requires that you not hide or withhold information that’s required for others to perform the job.

Fair, Unbiased Presentation

Technical writing needs to avoid personal biases or preferences, and present information in a direct, clear, neutral way. You’re not being asked to persuade through emotion, even in a persuasive document such as a recommendation report. You need to persuade through facts, research, and observations, through a balanced presentation of information. Avoid overly emotional, slanted, or exaggerated language in order to communicate ethically.

Ethical Data Analysis

When presenting data, make sure that you adhere to ethical presentation regarding placement, completeness, and fairness. However, you may have to make ethical decisions when presenting data. For example, you may be asked to “fudge the data” a little bit in order to fund or to retain funding for a grant or contract. A little fudged data may not seem too important when weighed against the possible loss of a client. But, as Kant reminds us, if you don’t want to be in a situation that others have lied about, then you should not perpetuate inaccurate information yourself. As you analyze data, avoid the following unethical practices:

Falsifying Data

Don’t falsity or delete data that does not prove a hypothesis in order to present a stronger argument that proves the hypothesis. For example, you’re in charge of  ordering pizza for an event, and you really want every pizza to have bacon on it. You survey 100 coworkers people about whether or not they like bacon; 50 people say yes, and 50 people said no, but 25 of the “nos” are vegetarians. You can truthfully report that half of the people surveyed like bacon, so half of the pizzas ordered should have bacon on them. Or, you could falsify the data by excluding the vegetarians from the survey because, as you reason, it’s not that they don’t LIKE bacon, but that they don’t EAT bacon, which is completely different from liking it. You could then say that 2/3 of the people surveyed like bacon, or 67 percent, and therefore have a rationale to order bacon on all the pizzas.

Trimming Data

Trimming data is a method used to lessen the effect of statistical outliers on the results of a study. In some cases, trimming is OK., but if you trim data, then you must tell your reader that you trimmed the data, and how much you trimmed it. For example, you’re doing a survey to determine if third graders at a local school like to read. Of the 100 students surveyed, 50 like to read, 25 don’t like to read, and 25 don’t know. Of the 25 who don’t know, 20 say they can’t read. Of the 25 who don’t like it, 10 say they can’t read. Of the 50 who say they like it, 35 say they can’t read. You decide to eliminate the students who say they can’t read. Your analysis states, “Of the students surveyed, 50 percent said they like to read, and 50 percent said they didn’t.” This is an example of unethical trimming, since it ignores a large percent of students who cannot read; in this case, they are not statistical outliers.

Cherry Picking Data

Cherry picking is the practice of only using data that supports your hypothesis. Here’s an example quoted from the text, Science Exposed, which points out the consequences of cherry picking data:

“In 2011, author Aric Sigman submitted a paper about the effects of daycare on young children to the scientific journal The Biologist (Goldacre). Sigman’s paper featured information from various sources and studies, but he only used information that supported his claim (Goldacre). Unfortunately, Daily Mail picked up on his paper and published the headline “Sending babies and toddlers to daycare could do untold damage to the development of their brains and their future health” (Goldacre). The issue with cherry picking is made quite obvious in this example, as Sigman’s unethical behavior resulted in a provocative headline that introduced misleading information into the public sphere.”^[6]

Here’s a fuller example of cherry picking from the website Open Mind: Cherry-Picking is Child’s Play. This example also deals with ethical—and unethical—use of visual information.

Presenting Visual Information Ethically

Visuals can be useful for communicating data and information efficiently for a reader. They provide data in a concentrated form, often illustrating key facts, statistics, or information from the text of the communication. When you present information visually, you have to be careful not to misrepresent or misreport the complete picture.

The visual below shows two perspectives of information in a pie chart. The data in each is identical but the pie chart on the left presents information in a misleading way (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 – Misleading and regular pie charts

Imagine that these pie charts represent donations received by four candidates for city council. Based on the misleading chart, the candidate represented by the green slice labeled “Item C,” might think that she had received more donations than the candidate represented in the blue “Item A” slice. In fact, if you look at the same data in the regular chart, you can see that candidate C received less than half of the donations than those for candidate A. A simple change in perspective can change the impact of an image.

Similarly, look at the bar graphs in figure 2 below.

Fig. 2 – Misleading and regular bar graphs

Society for Technical Communication’s Ethical Principles

^[1] Velasquez, Manuel G. Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases. 6^th Edition. Pearson/Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2006.

^[2] Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Jonathan Bennett. 1785. http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785.pdf

^[3] Four Scenarios for Ethical Evaluation adapted from samples created by Dr. Tamara Powell, Kennesaw State University, January 2016.

^[4] Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. Chapter VI. Retrieved at https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch6.htm

^[5] Report of the Committee on Science and Technology House of Representatives. Investigation of the Challenger Accident. October 29, 1986. House Report 99-1016. (pgs. 290-291). Retrieved at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-99hrpt1016/pdf/GPO-CRPT-99hrpt1016.pdf

^[6]  Science Exposed. Retrieved from http://ds-wordpress.haverford.edu/psych2015/projects/chapter/cherry-picking-data/