Specifically, additional research is necessary on other issues of document design such as the implications of line length, italics, white space, or the size and position on the page of illustrations.
This is important because awareness is key towards making a more ethically inclined workforce. Research will not only reveal ethical issues and solutions for those issues, but it could make more efficient modes of communication
The greater the likelihood of deception and the greater the injury to the reader as a consequence of that deception, the more unethical
This seems to be an overall ethical urge, but the problem with blindly trusting the ethical leanings of a large population is that there are differing feelings correlated with ethics (justice V feelings) as well as experiences with manipulation of information changing ideals. This should be remedied with professionals aiming toward clear ethical goals.
different types of explanations for their answers and the explanations are oftencontradictory.
I think this is a direct response to the lack of true definition of ethical responsibility. Everyone knows the job requirement is to "Assist the reader in comprehension" (8) but it's an easily logical excuse to organize information with the ideas of "reader responsibility"
While 66% of the technical communicators answered the survey, only 20% of the educators did.
This is another parallel to "Defining Plagiarism", as the world of academia is refusing to interact on a functioning level with the professional world.
The pilot testing, however, also revealed that students were tentative in judging the seven situations, preferring “mostly ethical” or “mostly unethical” as their answers, whereas the majority of professional communicators chose either “completely ethical” or “completely unethical” as their answers.
It's interesting to see that people who have become comfortable in their field are more confident in their choices (seen by "complete" answers) while the students who are learning the field without practicing it are more willing to allow instances against their opinion ("mostly")
My objective was to devise an instrument that was sufficiently provocative to stimulate discussion, both in school and on the job, as well as relatively quick and easy to administer so that it was practical for both academic and professional environments.
With an issue as difficult to navigate as Ethics, it's important to try and "unpack" potential issues so that it's easier to encourage a dialectic about terms and situations regarding the issues.
Bryan (1992) believes that neither codes of conduct nor journal articles on ethics are effective motivators of ethical behavior because practicing professionals typically ignore guidelines and theoretical discussions, preferring books and magazines that identify specific strategies for success on the job.
This is a curious observation because many fields that deliver information to consumers have ethical codes that are strictly followed. Doctors, Therapists, Teachers, and even Business Administration all follow their ethical guidelines strictly. I believe clarity in expectations is needed and would be appreciated in the industry.
but deleting “unsightly or unsafe items” is unethical.
A popular example of unethical editing is Target's photoshopping history. Through Photoshop, there is a clear manipulation of the swimsuit and the model; which changes perception unethically.
Using special typography, color, or glossy photographs is ethical unless important information is obscured. Double-spacing and using wide margins to make a publication look longer is ethical;
The moral of design manipulation, here, is that as long as the information is left without harmful manipulation, it's ethical. As soon as the information displayed alters the reality of the product, it is an unethical representation.
major client of your company has issued a request for proposals. The maximum length is 25 pages. You have written your proposal and it is 21 pages. You worry that you may be at a disadvantage if your proposal seems short. In order to make your proposal appear longer, you slightly increase the type size and the leading (i.e., the horizontal space between lines). Is this ethical?
This reminds me of the article we read for our last annotations that discussed how the concrete definitions and parameters within the Academic world differ from the business world. The expectations change, which means there are new ethical conundrums to address.
Similarly, articles in the major journals of the field characterize ethics exclusively as a verbal issue
This is also a categorical issue throughout Rhetorical History. Consider the five cannons of Rhetoric and how they battled the Rhetorical uses beyond verbal language. And again, the new acceptance of Multimodality within the Academic community addressing more modes of communication.
Rhetoric is constantly being redefined and broadened as new forms of persuasion and communication are discovered and created.