Introduction

Before you start learning how to create technical writing projects, it is vital to discuss one of the overriding concerns of the discipline: ethics. To begin, let’s set down a definition of the term. Dictionary.com defines ethics as “a system of moral principles.” However, as subsequent definitions show, it’s more complicated than this. Ethics are “the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc” (2025). In other words, ethics are specific rules of conduct that govern specific groups of people; in this case, we are discussing the rules of conduct that govern the work of technical communicators. As you will see, these rules are very important to most technical communicators – in fact, most organizations and companies have their own codes of conduct for professional communication.

To understand why ethics are important, let’s consider one of the most well-known real-life examples of technical communication failures: the Challenger space shuttle disaster of 1986.

Not all technical writing situations have the kind of stakes that Challenger did, but the tragedy is an important reminder that technical communications affect – and can therefore harm – real people, living creatures, and the environment we share. To be ethical technical communicators, then, is to be aware of these possible harms and to set out a clear set of values and behaviors that can guide us as we work. The remainder of this chapter will explore seven principles for ethical technical and professional communication, discuss common ethical mistakes in technical writing, and discuss the steps you should take to write ethically.

Principles of Ethics in Technical and Professional Communication^[3]

Technical communication occurs within a wide variety of professional sectors, including medicine, law, industry, and academia. In all of these sectors, communicators encounter several potential ethical issues and dilemmas. Whenever you join an organization, institution, or professional community, you should always familiarize yourself with their code(s) of conduct for technical and professional communication. Learning the expectations for your position will help you establish habits that reinforce your skills and practice as an ethical communicator.

In addition to specific codes of conduct, there are also some universal principles that technical and professional communicators can rely on to ensure that they apply their skills and present ideas ethically. The Society of Technical Communication (STC) offers six principles as focal points for practicing ethical communication^[4]:

1. Legality. We are responsible for knowing laws and regulations relevant to our profession. This means being responsible for laws at all scales, from local to international, and following those laws in good faith. Further, we keep the terms of our contracts, and we make sure those terms square with our ethical and legal responsibilities as technical communicators.

2. Honesty. We communicate honestly, both orally and in writing and seek to promote clarity when our meaning might be misconstrued by our audience. We “dedicate ourselves to conciseness, clarity, coherence, and creativity, striving to meet the needs of those who use our products and services” (STC, 1998). We obtain permission to use others’ work and attribute the authorship of materials to anyone who makes a contribution to the project. We advertise our services truthfully.

3. Confidentiality. We respect the privacy of clients, colleagues, classmates, students, employees, employers, and organizations. We share private information with prior consent or when legally obliged. We obtain releases from clients and employers before using work that might contain sensitive information in portfolios or demos.

4. Quality. We present our best work to clients and employers. We are transparent and realistic about our abilities. We negotiate realistic expectations regarding project scope, schedule, budget, and deliverables upfront, during project planning stages. We then strive to fulfill these obligations, maintaining clear communication with clients and employers about our project and seeking feedback at appropriate points during the process.

5. Fairness. We respect cultural and experiential differences within our organization, and between our organization and clients, development teams, and audiences. We work in alignment with the public good. We avoid conflicts of interest or disclose them immediately when engaging in professional activities.

6. Professionalism. We seek opportunities to refine our technical communication skills and ask for performance assessments and feedback on our work. We give others empathy, respect, and constructive criticism when we communicate or collaborate. We perform each technical communication task we undertake with integrity and seek to help others in our profession or organization.

7. Security. We are aware of the security protocols (mandated by law or company policy) that govern releasing information or using company technologies. We recognize and practice data security: using secure passwords, two-factor authentication, or encryption to protect sensitive data. We report phishing attempts, suspicious links, spyware, malware, and other risks.

How Bias Influences Unethical Communication

You might notice that most of these ethics violations could easily happen accidentally. Directly lying is unlikely to be accidental, but even in that case, the writer could persuade themself that the lie achieved some “greater good” and was therefore necessary.

Even more common is an ethics violation resulting from the person who is designing the information seeing it as evidence for whatever they understand as true, and honestly not recognizing the bias in how they have presented that information.

Many ethics violations in technical writing are (probably) unintentional, but they are still ethics violations. That means a technical writer must consciously identify their biases and check to see if a bias has influenced any presentation: whether in charts and graphs, or in discussions of the evidence, or in source use or in placement of information.

For example, scholarly research is theoretically intended to fulfill one of two purposes.  Some scholarly research attempts to gather evidence to evaluate whether a new idea is valid and contributes to the field. Other research reviews or attempts to replicate previous work to cement its validity.

One example of a groundbreaking study is James Watson and Francis Crick’s 1953 paper “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.”  Watson and Crick expanded on the work of other researchers concerning DNA as the vehicle for genetic code.  In response to another model for DNA (a triple-helix) proposed by scientists Linus Pauling and Robert Corey, Watson and Crick proposed the double-helix model to convey how DNA transmits genes across organisms.  Their paper was reviewed by other scientists in their field in order to be published in the scientific journal Nature, and after decades of subsequent research their double-helix model is still favored by the majority of contemporary scientists.

As with all human endeavors, however, research is susceptible to bias and error. For example, a recent study on the interrelationship between gender, mentor relationships, and career success in academia received intense scrutiny for its flawed design. Published in the academic journal Nature Communications, the study claims that researchers earlier in their careers (particularly women) tend to produce less significant research the more female mentors they have; therefore, early career researchers should seek out male mentors instead.^[8] Many other scientists critical of the study, however, pointed out that the study did not provide a concrete, functional definition of mentorship or senior standing, did not account for institutional bias in favor of men as a factor, and made the false assumption that more citations equals more career success.^[9] Subsequent to this criticism, the journal chose to retract the article, nullifying the rhetorical situation and the validity of the communication.^[10]

In practice, most folks are primarily looking for support: “Hey, I have this great new idea that will solve world hunger, cure cancer, and make mascara really waterproof. Now I just need some evidence to prove I am right!” However, if you can easily find 94 high-quality sources that confirm you are correct, you might want to consider whether your idea is worth developing. Often in technical writing, the underlying principle is already well-documented (maybe even common knowledge for your audience), and you should instead use that underlying principle to propose a specific application.

Using a large section of your document to prove an already established principle implies that you are saying something new about the principle—which is not true. A brief mention (“Research conducted at major research universities over the last ten years (see literature review, Smith and Tang, 2010) establishes that…”) accurately reflects the status of the principle; then you would go on to apply that principle to your specific task or proposal.

Typical Ethics Issues in Technical Writing^[11]

There are a few ethical issues that may arise when a writer is researching a topic for the business or technical world. Technical writing is complex, and asks a lot from a writer in terms of research and presenting information accurately to an audience. A given audience may not (and in fact likely does not) have the same understanding of the topic as the writer of the document. It’s the writer’s job to figure out how to accurately convey hours of research and design to the audience in a way that is both clear and ethical. Being aware of the following common ethical issues will help you to create technical writing that balances these needs.

Research that Does Not Support the Project Idea

In a technical document that contains research, you might discover conflicting data that does not support the project’s goal. For example, your small company has problems with employee morale. Research shows that bringing in an outside expert, someone who is unfamiliar with the company and the stakeholders, has the potential to enact the greatest change. You discover, however, that bringing in such an expert is cost prohibitive. Should you leave this information out of your report, thereby encouraging your employer to pursue an action that is really not feasible? Conversely, should you include the information at the risk of not being able to offer the strongest solution?

Suppressing Relevant Information

Suppressing relevant information can include a variety of factors, including the statistical significance of data or the researchers’ stake in the findings. For example, a study in 2015 found that driving while dehydrated is about as dangerous as driving while under the influence of alcohol. While this was widely reported in popular news sources, these sources failed to highlight some of the most important aspects of the study. To begin with, the study was conducted using just 12 people, and only 11 of them reported data. Furthermore, the study was conducted by an organization called the European Hydration Institute, which in turn is a think-tank subsidiary of the Coca-Cola corporation. In other words, not only was the sample size far too small to make this claim, but the data collection was designed and implemented by a corporation with a stake in the findings, since they profit off the sale of hydration products.^[12] This case illustrates the ethical dubiousness of suppressing important contextual information for the sake of a sensational headline.

Not Verifying Sources Properly

Whenever you incorporate others’ ideas into your documents, especially quotations, make sure that you are attributing them to the correct source. Mark Twain, supposedly quoting British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”^[13] On the other hand, H.G. Wells has been (mis)quoted as stating, “statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.”^[14] When using quotes, even ones from famous figures that regularly appear as being commonly attributed to a particular person, it is important to verify the source of the quote. Such quotes often seem true, because the ideas they present are powerful and appealing. However, it is important to verify the original source both because you need to make sure that your quote is, in fact, correct, and that it is not being taken out of context from the original source. The effective use of statistics can play a critical role in influencing public opinion as well as persuading in the workplace. However, as the fame of the first quotation indicates, statistics can be used to mislead rather than accurately inform—whether intentionally or unintentionally.

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 report. When writers present information visually, they have to be careful not to misrepresent or misreport the complete picture. Many of the visual design guidelines we’ll offer in the textbook are meant to help ensure that you present your data ethically, primarily by not misleading readers and by ensuring access for as many readers as possible.

Figure 3.1^[15] below shows information in a pie chart from two different perspectives. The data in each is identical, but the pie chart on the left presents information in a misleading way. What do you notice about how that information is conveyed to the reader?

Imagine that these pie charts represented donations received by four candidates for city council. The candidate represented by the gray 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 we look at the same data in the 2D chart, we can see that Item C represents fewer than half of the donations compared to those for Item A. Thus, a simple change in perspective can change the impact of an image.

Similarly, take a look at the bar graphs in Figure 3.2^[16] below. What do you notice about their presentation?

If the bar graph above were to represent sales figures for a company, the representation on the left would look like good news: dramatically increased sales over a five-year period. However, a closer look at the numbers reveals that the graph shows only a narrow range of numbers in a limited perspective (9100 to 9800). The bar graph on the right, on the other hand, shows the complete picture by presenting numbers from 0-1200 on the vertical axis, and we see that the sales figures have in fact been relatively stable for the past five years.

Presenting data in graphical form can be especially challenging. As you prepare your graphics, keep in mind the importance of providing appropriate context and perspective.

Limited Source Information in Research

Thorough research requires you to incorporate and synthesize information from a variety of reliable sources. Your document or presentation should demonstrate that you have examined the topic from as many angles as possible. Thus, your sources should include scholarly and professional research from a variety of appropriate databases and journals, as opposed to just one author or website. Using a range of sources helps 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 Northwest Arkansas, you would not collect data from only one broker’s office. While this office might have access to broader data on the real estate market, as a writer you run the risk of looking biased if you only chose materials from this one source. Collecting information from multiple brokers would demonstrate thorough and unbiased research.

Steps for Writing Ethically^[17]

In any profession you pursue, you are likely to be asked to create documents, whether alone or collaboratively, with your coworkers. These documents will be read by people within your organization, but also people outside of it: clients, government agencies, and possibly even the general public. These audiences will have different points of view, different levels of expertise, and different experiences, cultures, and opinions. Further, although technical writing documents are meant to be persuasive (consider, for example, a job application, a proposal, or a grant application), persuasion should not sideline ethics.

That means there are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to writing ethically! Since a clear, complete message is so vital to technical communication, it’s smart to have a plan – or in this case, a set of actions you can take to make sure that you are working ethically from the beginning to the end of your project. No matter what type of environment you face when you are asked to create a document, the actions below will guide you towards ethical communication.

Commit to Doing Your Research

As you’ve read this chapter, it’s probably become obvious that research is key to ethical technical writing – and research in the field takes a wide variety of forms, as you’ll discover when you work on your projects this semester. You will research your subject deeply, just as you would for academic writing. But all writing is a negotiation between you, your subject, and your potential and actual audiences. Because of the typical subjects and purposes of technical writing, research on your audience and their needs is an integral part of the technical writing process.

For example, if you are creating a set of instructions (a very common technical writing task), you have a lot of research to do in order to ensure the project’s success. In our example, the instructions tell customers how to put together a flat-pack bookcase. This audience is wide – you work for a relatively large company, and a wide variety of people might want an inexpensive, easy-to-assemble bookcase. People of a wide variety of ages and skill levels might attempt this project. You also need to know the actual process for assembling the bookcase so you can write clearly about it. That means you will need to talk to at least one person on the design team, so you can understand how they intend the pieces to be put together. At this point, you are able to start drafting.

However,  your research doesn’t end there. Once you have a complete draft of your instructions, you will need to move on to a phase of technical writing called usability testing. In this step, you test your document with an audience as close to your real audience as possible. In this case, you want to know whether an audience can use your instructions to successfully assemble the bookcase. If they can, then you can start revising and proofreading your document. If they can’t, then you will have to rethink, then revise your instructions, and then test them again, until your test users can successfully complete the task.

To do ethical research in technical writing, then, you need to commit to the idea that research is recursive. That is, research occurs in cycles. You may have enough information to draft instructions, but until you have the draft, you can’t research whether your instructions work with your test audience. Once you have the results of your usability tests, you should then use that information to revise and improve your instructions. All information you distribute to an audience should be based on careful research and diligently tested.

Center Your Constituents’ Best Interests

Technical communication documents are often straightforward: they are concise (as short as they can be while still communicating a complete message), practical, and clear. In spite of these characteristics, however, technical writing is still rhetorical. That is, technical writing documents seek to persade their audiences about something. Sometimes, persuasion comes with a high failure cost; if a company’s proposal is not chosen, the company will lose money, perhaps quite a lot of it. It can be tempting to only communicate the most persuasive points of a document, leaving out information that will complicate your argument or render it less effective.

However, persuasion is not the only aim of most documents, and focusing solely on persuasion is not in our audience’s best interests. Let’s consider a car’s user manual. Focused only on persuasion, the information inside would slant towards persuading the reader that they’ve bought a great car, or that maintenance is simple, even when it’s not. Focused on the audience’s best interests, the manual will include specific steps for every maintenance process, no matter how complicated; it will also include safety information for each of the steps, so that car owners can make educated decisions about which maintenance tasks they attempt themselves, and which they leave to a professional.

When you consider an audience’s best interests, you practice communicating ethically with your constituents. Constituents are, broadly, not only the people who will read your document (your audience), but also anyone who will be affected by the actions you propose. That is, a proposal to expand the school lunch programs in Washington County may only be read by school board members, but it also obviously affects children who attend public schools and their parents. To be an ethical technical communicator, you must consider all of these people as you write.

When you center your constituents, you commit to doing the research that gives you a full picture of your writing situation. Further, you commit not only to identifying your constituents, but learning more about them, and speaking with them to understand how your documents will affect their experiences of the world. You prioritize understanding how your work might do harm, and working to avert that harm if possible. If your work cannot avert all possible harms, then you owe your constituents an understanding of those harms, so that they can make an educated decision about what to do with your information.

Represent Information Honestly

Related to doing complete, thoughtful research and centering your constituents’ needs is the commitment to representing information honestly in your work. Regardless of your purpose for writing, you should never create content that can cause readers to believe something that is not true. You should not present information you know is false, and most of us understand why doing so would create problems. However, such ethical choices can also be more subtle and more complex, so it is important to have a clear understanding of the ways in which we owe our audiences accurate information.

We can see this clearly in the first case study in this chapter, the Challenger disaster. Brian Russell’s memo did not attempt to conceal the potentially catastrophic consequences of O-ring failure in the shuttle’s solid booster. However, the order in which he presented his materials mattered – this acknowledgement followed paragraphs in which Russell downplayed the likelihood of this outcome. Had Russell changed his communication technique and centered the possibility that the failure could destroy the shuttle and kill the crew, as did Roger Boisjoly, this message would have been re-emphasized to managers. We can’t say whether supervisors higher up the chain would have made a different decision with this information clearly stated, but this situation clearly emphasizes why representing information honestly is a key technical communication principle. The Challenger tragedy shows clearly that the the way we present information matters, sometimes with a consequence of human lives.

Most cases aren’t so clear-cut. For example, when writing a proposal, it might be tempting to report only research that favors your opinion or the objectives of your organization. When writing a progress report about a project, it might be tempting to leave out how you are behind the timeline or over-budget. When creating an infographic, it may be tempting to oversimplify the topic to keep the audience’s attention or cater to their prior beliefs. On the job, technical writers can experience pressures that make it tempting to take shortcuts and stretch the truth.

To enact this principle, you should think carefully about how to include research in your documents, and explain that research using clear, concise language suited to the needs of your audience. Use your quotation, paraphrase, and summary skills to explain important background information relevant to your project, and always cite your sources, no matter what type of document you are creating. Additionally, you should be cautious about using figures, charts, and tables – make sure they visually represent quantities with accuracy and honesty. Always report your progress on a project and your use of project funds accurately.

Be Aware of Your Biases

We all have various biases which affect the ways we communicate and interpret information. In fact, it would be difficult for humans to avoid bias: we all come from specific cultures, countries, and experiences, and those things color the way that we perceive the world around us. We use what we already know to predict how the world will work in other situations. We interpret situations based on personal experience, and we use that framework until it doesn’t explain what we’re encountering. It’s important to understand that we do this almost automatically – humans are excellent at pattern recognition, and because we can’t have every possible experience, assumptions sometimes do serve us well, since they help us to adapt to new situations. If you travel to Australia and encounter an unfamiliar snake, for example, your prior encounters with snakes in Arkansas (let’s say a water moccasin), might lead you to be very cautious and to keep a distance between you and the animal. This is a case in which a “bias” against snakes cause you to alter your behavior as a way to prevent harm to yourself.

However, biases can be (and often are) harmful. A harmful bias might lead you to believe, for example, that a candidate is incapable of doing a job because of her ethnicity, country of origin, or religious preferences. Harmful biases might affect processes like hiring, promotion, or being chosen to work on particular projects. This is one way that unethical technical communication can affect and harm real people – that’s why it’s important that we try to understand our own biases.

Most important to understand is that most bias is subconscious, or implicit. That means that we are often not aware of the bias we display in our writing; it’s helpful to have a peer, coworker, or supervisor who is willing to give your feedback on your documents. Another set of eyes (or several sets) can help you to make sure you have not included any discriminatory assumptions. This is also an area in which research is crucial – knowing your audiences and their needs will help you to write towards them more ethically.

The not-for-profit organization Project Implicit has been researching subconscious biases for years and has developed several, free online tests. The tests can help you understand your proclivities and subconscious biases. Knowing your biases may help you begin to overcome them.

Solicit and Utilize Feedback Regularly

Finally, to be an ethical technical writer, you must both solicit and utilize feedback throughout your project. As you’ve learned from prior writing courses, feedback is critical to the writing process: it is an opportunity to test your content in front of a real audience in order to understand whether your document communicates your message clearly. Feedback can tell you whether your main idea is clear, whether your organization makes sense, and whether you have adequate support for your claims.

Because technical writing is intimately tied to the physical world in which we live, technical writers must think about their audiences in particular ways. Specifically, it’s important to know that your message is clear and that your users know how to use this information for their purposes. This is information you can only know if you ask, so technical writing workflows include usability testing, which you read about earlier. After technical writers conduct usability tests, they use this information to revise and edit the documents they are creating according to the test audience’s responses.

To collect this type of feedback, technical writers must plan ahead. That is, usability testing becomes part of the planning process for technical writing projects. When such projects happen within a company, the organization will often pay for testers to read or test documents. Technical writers usually design usability tests beforehand. If a company needs to know whether a set of instructions will work, they’ll ask users to put together a bookcase, or set up a cell phone. You can also ask for less formal feedback – for example, you might ask your boss whether a progress report sounds right before you submit it, or you might ask your coworker to proofread your email to your boss.

Before you ask for feedback, take time to think about what you most need to know. Are you most concerned about whether your main idea is clear? Do you need information about how well your organization helps the reader navigate a document? Do you need advice about how to make your graphics more effective? Write down 3-4 main questions you have about your document so that your test audience can give you feedback in the areas where you most need it.

Since ethical technical writing responds to users, you also need a plan for implementing the feedback you receive. Try thinking of your feedback as rhetorical data – data which gives you information on where your document meets its aims and doesn’t, ways your document connects with your audience and misses the mark. With this data, you can make informed decisions about how to adapt your document, balancing the needs of your users with the aims of your document.

Conclusion

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References

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