Read this article to learn more about technical… While creation of presentations or general reports requires no specific knowledge, some technical documents are rather complicated. Up to this point, you have probably been thinking about technical writing in relation to communicating technical information clearly in an accessible format that meets the needs of its audience. Graphics created by the federal government, say from the National Park Service, or the FDA, or the EPA, are not under copyright, and therefore can be used without having to go through the sometimes-onerous process of securing permissions. Was the information simply copied and pasted as a whole or changed? Advanced Examples of Technical Documentation . You should ask yourself the following questions: Be cautious about using sources that are not reviewed by peers or editor, or in which the information cannot be verified, or seems misleading, biased, or even false. Therefore, warnings should stand out from the rest of the documents, possibly with icons, colored fonts, or bolding. Also, although not required by law, it is a good idea to cite sources from inside your own company as well. Whether they are a student or a professional, writing is a communication medium that they will have to master to be able to effectively answer the many needs that their current position asks them to perform. They should also be easy to understand. The legal consequences are most notable when one considers writing in the professional world. Presumably, the engineers were trying to present … I grabbed the fire extinguisher. Technical Writing Resume Summary Samples. Patents and trademarks are company names (WalMart), logos (the Target bullseye), processes or slogans (McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it”) that belong to a person or company. The money spent on lawyers and the time spent in court takes away resources a company could use for improving business and products. I for example have built my career mostly on writing using guides. Does your professional association’s code of conduct address this issue? It is, however, supposed to report sales to date, and may forecast future sales based on previous trends. Contract Law is an agreement between two entities. You discover, however, that to bring in such an expert is cost prohibitive. In legal decisions, discovery is incredibly important. They need to explain, based off of previous actions which were taken, citing specific areas of the Constitution and other court cases which helped them to draw their conclusions, and then explain thoroughly how those logical conclusions were drawn. Documenting source use in such a way as to either mislead your reader about the source or make identifying the source difficult is also unethical—that would include using just a URL or using an article title without identifying the journal in which it appears (in the works cited/references; you would not likely identify the journal name in the report’s body). This will allow you to voice your thoughts without putting you on the spot for being the bad guy. If using someone else’s property affected the market for the copyrighted work. Quoting the work of others in your writing is fine, provided that you credit the source fully enough that your readers can find it on their own. 1. It is much easier to define what is not adequate. Whether they are a student or a professional, writing is a communication medium that they will have to master to be able to effectively answer the many needs that their current position asks them to perform. It is important to explore why poor technical writing is unethical for each of these fields. Graphics will usually be the first thing a reader notices about your document; if a reader finds your graphics misleading, your entire document may be called into question. (Some of the items are excerpts.) How the packaging is done and what is on the accompanying fliers or material can be part of this. Unethical email marketing -- as another commenter pointed out, buying lists is considered unethical. See chapter 10 for more information on credibility and evaluating secondary sources. A writer not following any of the previously listed principles would definitely be viewed as unethical and unprofessional in many senses. Here are just four examples that every CIO should be aware of, along with advice on how enterprises can remain neutral. One of my students had replaced the instructions on the extinguisher with the following:When a fire is burning hotter than bituminous coal in the belly of a furnace and it requires not a little water, you're in luck, f… However, in order for it to be ethical technical writing he needed to explain it in laymen’s terms and have it be accessible to the audience that needed to hear it. See Figure 3 below. Product recalls can be another legal problem for companies. However, sometimes speaking up, and/or notifying authorities is the only right thing to do, as difficult as that may be. If you need to use graphics from the internet, a good option is to look for graphics that are open source. Online technical writing: types of technical documents. 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. In practice, though, most folks are primarily looking for support. Researchers at the Institute of Leadership and Management in the UK asked 1600 managers what they think is unethical behavior in a workplace. Published in: Education, Business. The trashcan in my classroom caught on fire last week. Unethical writing is usually guilty ofone or more of the three M’s: misquotation, misrepresentation, andmanipulation. What do you notice about their presentation? Sometimes, the copyright holder allows it if credit is given. Contents. These are among the reasons certain documents are carefully reviewed before being sent to their intended readers. If you are a technical writer and you join a professional associations such as the Society of Technical Communicators you will need to be aware their codes of ethics, published online (e.g., http://www.stc.org/about-stc/ethical-principles). They provide data in a concentrated form, often illustrating key facts, statistics or information from the text of the report. What I’ve done this week is share 7 examples of different standard operating procedures examples (also called SOPs) so you can see how different organizations write, format, and design their own procedures. It may be easier to mind our own businesses and keep quiet, but really the only right thing to do is to stand up, and speak up, for what is right. Because economic models are based off of the ability to replicate them easily and simply, poor technical writing is unethical. All of these concentrations have something in common. Examples of Unethical Behavior Unethical behavior is an action that falls outside of what is considered morally right or proper for a person, a profession or an industry. Just because a graphic is open source, does not mean that you can pass it off as your own work, and if you don’t cite it, that is exactly what you are doing, whether or not that was your intention. For example, your small company continues to have problems with employee morale. US law stipulates that a manual must list any hazards that may occur “from the intended or unintended but reasonably foreseeable use of its products.” (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.productliabilityprevention.com/images/6-LegallyAdequateWarningLabelsAConundrumforEveryManufacturer.pdf&sa=D&ust=1553803200010000) You have a legal duty to warn consumers when: Failure to “adequately” warn consumers opens your company up to lawsuits. But in this context, it means the detailed discussion of the physical aspects of a thing. 5 Most Common Unethical Behaviors in the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) Survey . For example, your small company continues to have problems with employee morale. In fact, if we look at the same data in a differently oriented chart, we can see that Item C represents less than half of the donations than those for Item A. Coercing an injured worker not to report a work injury to workers' compensation by threatening him with the loss of a job or benefits. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. The copyright symbol is shown with a ©. Photos are used in professional documents as tools for communicating a message that a writer feels can be strengthened through the use of proper imagery. Examples of Good and Bad Technical Writing - Volume 8 Issue 1 Skip to main content Accessibility help We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a … You struggle with whether to leave this information out of your report… Now I just need some evidence to prove I am right!” This is one version of confirmation bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) – where people tend to favor evidence that supports their preconceived notions and reject evidence that challenges their ideas or beliefs. You can buy links. Professionalism in technical writing can be difficult to define, but I would suggest that upholding all of the previously mentioned principles is key to maintaining professionalism. If you use graphics (or anything at all) in an assignment that you did not create, you need to indicate as much. The unethical feature was that the crucial information about the O-rings was buried in a middle paragraph, while information approving the launch was in prominent beginning and ending spots. Thorough research requires a writer to integrate information from a variety of reliable sources. Ethics in Technical Communication Chapter written by Dr. Tamara Powell Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. What are you unwilling to do? They consistently place profits before the health of their employees. Or when a Bill is being voted on if the package isn’t examined for potential problems and run through analysis and regressions to determine the outcome and if it is economically feasible and replicable in all the states then it is poor technical writing. What will you do when you are asked, implicitly or explicitly, to compromise your ethics? Only the copyright holders should profit from material they own. If you plan on selling wares internationally, account for various regional requirements. 10+ Technical Report Writing Examples – PDF Being able to write with finesse and conciseness is an advantageous skill to anyone who has it. Throughout your career, you will be required to create many documents. There is some crossover on this list with the Top 10 Evil Human Experiments. A procedure should have no more than 10 steps. In the political spectrum poor technical writing is incredibly unethical. For example, use a salutation like “Dear Ms. X” (external) or “Hi Barry” (internal). Writers may encounter situations in which they must ask the following kinds of questions: What kinds of support material and sources are ethical to use? Research shows bringing in an outside expert, someone who is unfamiliar with the company and the stakeholders, has the potential to impact the greatest change. These situations can cause problems within the business structure for not only the writer, but also the writer's… However, the point here is technical writing, format, organization, style—not up-to-date technology. We are taught from a young age that you should never “rat” on anyone, and staying silent is often easier than mustering the courage to reveal ethical corruption. 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. True, many of these examples are as much as twenty years old. We all use the word description loosely to refer to practically any discussion or explanation. Only the copyright holder, the person/organization who owns the protected item, can copy it. That means if you are borrowing a good idea from a friend at another company, you must cite them as a source. A classic example of unethical technical writing is the memo report NASA engineers wrote about the problem with O-ring seals on the space shuttle Challenger. Imagine that the company disposes of its chemical waste in a way that could endanger people’s health. This, in turn, affects the company’s public profit, and essentially its standing. Either you are saying it is a source when in fact you did not really use anything from it, or you have simply failed to clarify in the text what are your ideas and what comes from other sources. With a greater recognition now that writing is a critical part of engineering professionals’ jobs, universities and technical schools are incorporating more writing courses, and for experienced professionals, there are many courses available for improving their writing skills. 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) might be a manipulative strategy to emphasize information that is not terribly important. Are they peer reviewed by experts in the field? There are always legal issues to consider when writing a professional document and they reflect in writing style. Is it your responsibility to tell the truth (and potentially save children’s lives) or to cherry pick information that supports the parent group’s initial intentions? Look for the codes of ethics in your own discipline and begin to read and understand what will be expected of you as a professional in your field. In this chapter, you will learn about some of the ethical challenges that you may encounter in your professional and academic life, especially when it comes to technical writing. Summary. Overall, there are a few basic points to adhere to whenever you are writing a professional document: a) do not mislead, b) do not manipulate, and c) do not stereotype. Technical writing is a specialized form of exposition: that is, written communication done on the job, especially in fields with specialized vocabularies, such as science, engineering, technology, and the health sciences. Written testimonies are incredibly important. Safety information must also be accessible to your readers. Professional and Technical Writing Created June 10, ... for example, is not designed to make an individual sale. In almost every field, there are legal and professional consequences for committing unethical behavior, and often remaining silent about corrupt conduct—whether the action are yours or a colleague’s—can implicate you as well. Their feelings and livelihood must be considered with every appropriate document you create. Online Technical Writing: Technical Description The biggest hurdle you may face in writing a description is remembering what the term means as it is used in this context. I don’t know about the essay thing. Also, when in a lawsuit, a company has to remember that all documents may be subpoenaed. This unethical practice essentially tricks a website buyer into thinking a website transaction is complete when, in fact, the business never gets notice of the sale, and the money is lost offshore. The most common examples of technical writing are: User manuals software installation guides Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Service Level Agreements (SLA) Request for Proposal (RFP) legal disclaimers; company documents annual reports and Help files. Change ), The Importance of Language Structure and Rules. [1] The graphic below shows two perspectives of information in a pie chart. What this allows you to do is base a solution around many different sides instead of just your own. You might assum… Many problems in documenting sources occur because the writer is missing the point of source use. In many workplaces, the culture is influenced by the attitudes and behavior of those in management positions. Technical writers must be aware of ethical dilemmas that could mislead readers. Downplaying negative side effects of a product. Whether it is covering for someone who shows up late or altering a time sheet, misusing company time tops the list. There should not be a plot twist or surprise ending — just clear steps, info, and examples. Chapter 3: Team Work and Collaborative Writing. Often in technical writing, the underlying principle is already well-documented (maybe even common knowledge for your audience) and the point should be to use that underlying principle to propose a specific application. It’s not about writing a mystery novel. 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