Eng606:
Issues in Professional & Technical Writing: Professional Ethics Syllabus:

Texts: Almost all the elements of this course are available online. The big exception is textbooks. Every semester I have students in a panic because they cannot quickly get texts. Amazon often reports a 2 month delay in shipping the Porter book! The NAU bookstore has copies, which they will ship to you.

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1. Dombrowski, Paul. Ethics in Technical Communication. Allyn Bacon;
   ISBN: 0-205-27462-5.  $60 list; Amazon used $45.

2. Porter, James E. Rhetorical Ethics and Internetworked Writing:  Ablex Pub Corp;
   ISBN: 1567503233.  List $34; Amazon used $26.

Course description:  As the title indicates, this course focuses on the ethics of professional & technical writing. In one sense, the ethical obligation of the profession seems crystal clear: to provide honest, accurate, & usable information to end users. There is also an obvious concern to protect & warn readers about dangerous processes. On the other hand, if you were employed by the tobacco industry in the last few decades you would undoubtedly have been involved in producing documents that were evasive at best & often outright lies. Star Wars related promises & proposals also produced moral questions about honesty. The Challenger space shuttle disaster illustrated still other rhetorical & ethical problems.

This is a course in the Certificate in Professional & Technical Writing program. Consequently, the focus of the course will be less concerned with ethical theory (as in a philosophy course) & more concerned with industry practices & the concerns of industry writers.

There are 4 structures in the course that we will try to separate as discrete concerns:

• personal religious belief

• personal ethics

• legality

• professional ethics

We cannot simply use personal ethics in place of professional ethics. When people do this, in dealing with dilemmas, it is often at the cost of renouncing their profession. The context for professional ethics is doing one's job as a professional writer. Few of us have had enough experience doing this to be familiar with common problems, with what employers or clients expect, or with what our colleagues do. Legal education runs into the same problem. Students obviously have experience with religious belief and personal ethics, but they have not yet practiced law & consequently have no direct experience of professional ethics in that context.

Our solution to this problem relies on two things. First we must be vigilant to separate personal from professional ethics. Personal ethics allow us to decide whether or not we are willing to do the job. If we are, we assume explicit and implicit professional obligations. There are likely to be legal (contractual) requirements that minimally define acceptable service. Professional ethics operate above the level of being sued for negligence or fraud. Our second strategy will rely on Net resources to find out what professional writers are concerned about. Techwr-L is a good resource for this.

Most of us recognize that passing the test of legality does not satisfy standards associated with professional ethics. But the reverse is not as easily recognized. For example, one case mentions that software may have been obtained illegally. Many students over-rely on the world "illegal" to invoke personal ethics & refuse to do the job. Since this is only a thought experiment, they can afford to do this. Ten years invested into a profession is likely to create a different outlook. I want to identify a different problem in this case. Many of you will have taken Eng522 where we read Foucault on the idea of social construction. Legality is obviously a social construction, not a fixed & eternal fact. Instead of immediately abandoning professional ethics at the mere mention of illegality, rhetoric students should begin to explore the social construction of the problem, which would quickly lead them to the open source software controversy that is a much discussed professional ethics topic among professional & technical writers.

Quitting the job satisfies personal ethics. It does not satisfy professional ethics, because it does not rely on discussing the problem with colleagues, clients, & employers. We cannot directly do that, but you must seek to find that discussion in Net or library resources rather than substituting personal ethical judgments because the authority for profession ethics lies in the profession, not in private values or judgments.

Course structure:  The course would seem to logically fall into two sections: theory & application. We will not, however, spend much time on elaborating ethical theory. Two major systems remain popular for academic analysis & discussion: Kant's deontological ethics & Utilitarianism. Less popular or familiar outlooks that we will consider include virtue ethics (Aristotle), Confucianism, & feminism (or an ethics of care, as in caring for a child). Ethical outlooks directly derived from Christian  denominational or other religious belief are too limited to appeal to the broad range of people involved in any profession. They also clash with secular humanistic values that are assumed by the American legal system. Yet, every ethical theory requires a belief in its foundational claims. For example, Utilitarianism claims that people are fundamentally no different than animals. Our motivation is provided by an instinct to avoid pain & experience pleasure. Kant suggests the opposite; that people are fundamentally rational & that most moral problems arise from a temporary, emotional lapse of rationality. The prophetic religions (Christianity, Islam, & Judaism) are based on a belief in prophecy & the supernatural. Aristotle & Kant recognize the divine but do not rely on prophecy to produce specific injunctions.

Dombrowski's book has chapters on:

• ethical theories
• Nazi documents
• the Challenger disaster
• the tobacco industry
• Star Wars

The Web course offers a process to self-consciously use various ethical theories to analyze & discuss these & other cases or instances of how professional & technical writing have been involved in moral dilemmas or concerns. From a "course lessons"  Web page in Blackboard-Vista there are a series of Web pages that offer my notes on the reading. 

• Each unit has a what to do page that specifies assignments for each unit. 
• In each unit you will read selections from one of the texts & associated Web pages that explicate the text. 
• There is a quiz on the text for each lesson. These are untimed & repeatable.
• Each lesson requires you to complete exercises from the text or do other short work based on the material in the text or available online.
• You will do an analytic paper on a topic of your choice concerning professional ethics for professional or technical writing.

Use the calendar tool to check dates by clicking on calendar in the left purple column. 

What to do in the course: Sample "What to do page":

In addition to unit activities, like those illustrated above for unit 04, you must write an analytic paper on a moral dilemma that is relevant to the communities of professional or technical writing.  Here is part of the description of the assignment:

What to do for the course project or major paper Read Dombrowski, Ch 8: "Ethics Exercises." Choose one of the cases or define (or discover) a similar case. If you choose a case not defined by Dombrowski, please propose the case to me for approval before you begin to invest work on it. Analyze the case from at least 2 clearly defined ethical perspectives: Explain why each ethical system is an appropriate tool to use. Differentiate levels: fact, theory, & application of the theory to interpret facts. Explain the significance of the dilemma. Anticipate & answer likely objections or counter-arguments. If possible, suggest a ladder of solutions or responses from minimal response to solving the dilemma. Look for parallels or precedents. Address an identified audience; you may even explain rhetorical strategies in an afterward, if you think it necessary. The emphasis is on ethics, analysis, & writing; not on bibliography or factual reporting. If you use Web sources, rhetorically consider the "publisher" or sponsoring agent. Scale: 10-15 pages (2,500--3,750) words. Organization: use tech writing methods of logical division instead of narrative development; use headlines. Submit your paper as an attachment to a discussion post. Read & critically respond to 2 other papers in the discussion section for unit 08. Due: Unit 08. Paper: 100 points Discussion critiques of other papers: 10 points each (20 total)

Grades:

        90% (501 points): A
        80% (445 points): B
        65% (362 points): C

Because quizzes are a study tool, you make take them as many times as you wish. The program records your highest score.

Submission deadlines:  Use the Calendar tool in WebCT to find dates for the submission of material. I will not accept material from lessons two units prior to the one we are studying. If the calendar says we are working on unit 5, I will accept late work from units 4 and 3, but not earlier. The grade for work submitted a week late is reduced by 10%; two weeks late by 20%. Work submitted more than two weeks late is not accepted. Please follow the calendar. Discussion are only meaningful when we are involved in the activity being discussed.

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Home   Teaching   NAU English   NAU Home Email: john.rothfork@nau.edu 05.11.07