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Eng606: |
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Issues in
Professional & Technical Writing: Professional Ethics
Syllabus:
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Department:
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When:
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Arts and
Letters
English
English
606: Issues in Professional &
Technical Writing: Ethics
1030
1031
Summer 2009 10-week schedule (June 01 -- Aug. 04)
3 hrs.
John Rothfork
BAA 324 -- Babbitt Academic Annex
(next to the English bldg.)
928.523.0559
john.rothfork@nau.edu
http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/jgr6
Graduate status
http://vista.nau.edu |
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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-
Dombrowski,
Paul.
Ethics in Technical Communication.
Allyn Bacon;
ISBN: 0-205-27462-5. $60 list;
Amazon used $45.
- 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":
|
 What
to do for unit 04
- Read Paul Dombrowski's, Ethics
in Technical Communications, ch. 4: pp. 81-120.
- Read the associated Webpage,
"04_Dombrowski."
- Do quiz 04,
accessible using the Evaluation tool from the course homepage (10
points).
- Answer the question on
p. 115, #1. Post your answer in the discussion area for unit 04 (20
points).
- Due either: (20
points; post to the
discussion area)
- p. 118, #6:
Poirier & Brauner, "Ethics
in the Daily Language of Medical Discourse."
- p. 118, #8: "Scientific Research:
Continued Vigilance."
(This link accesses documents generated by the Advisory
Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, but not the paper mentioned in
the text. You can easily find other related documents by doing a
Web search on the topic of human subjects in scientific testing.)
Total:
50
points for unit 04. |
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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