English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

This week’s reading covered ethics. Early on in the reading, ethics were defined by the phrase “doing the right thing”. This covers the basics of ethics but later on in the reading, ethics are broken up into three types: personal, social and conversation. Out of all the types of ethics, it seems as though that social ethics will have the greatest impact on my career. Especially since I hope to be involved the security sector of IT, many of the publications released are considered too controversial because they often put some users at risk.

I've always felt like ethics are a matter of doing the right thing; knowing what to do is easy, it's just that sometimes it's hard to commit to doing it. I like to think that right and wrong are simple and intuitive. However, after reading TCT chapter five, I do think there are some subjects in the topic of ethics where right and wrong take a back seat to what's legal and what isn't.

An example of this is the new concern I have after completing the reading about trademarks and my instructions project on Excel spreadsheets.

The main point from this week’s reading, Chapte5 in the TCT, is the discussion of ethics of peoples motives what is socially and culturally acceptable and how to incorporate proper use of other people’s legal property.

I find that the example of the Einstein letter was useful in understanding how ethics can be good and bad. With all intentions Einstein wanted to help prevent the Nazis from creating and using the atomic bomb by helping the US crating the atomic bomb before the Nazis.

Ethics is a big part of life, not only in the workplace and in school, but it is somewhat of a factor in almost every single situation that a person deals with. Ethics, or as the book put it, “doing the right thing,” is something that is engrained in a person when they are a child by their parents and their surroundings. Long story short, a person’s ethics is basically what they think is right or wrong. For example, is it right to cheat off of another person’s test paper or is it right to look away and not cheat?

Ethics obviously seems like it should be the most important thing to consider when you are making any kind of major decision or are working for a large business. Unfortunately this is usually not the case. It is quite obvious that most people and businesses are only out for themselves and generally do not care what happens along the way. I think this is seen most with larger companies more than the average person or small business. It is pretty obvious when you look at the way they treat their customers or their attitude towards the environment.

As I first started reading through this weeks reading selection I immediately noticed a few concepts that directly correlates to our current project in reference to ethics. The first form of ethics that I though directly influences this project is, personal ethics. The one reason why we are wanting to due this project is because of the censoring of information in respect to how programs are wrote. When big corporate companies, like Microsoft, will write their programs and won't let anyone see the code.

I found this week’s assigned readings to be very useful, important, and relevant both independently and in regard to the white paper project. First off, chapter 5 of Technical Communication Today opens with a reference to the widespread (illegal) downloading of MP3s by Internet users everywhere. With this act, TCT calls into question the ethics of the situation, specifically, “is this ethical?” TCT simply responds that “the music industry says no,” but I think it’s safe to say no in any context.

This week’s readings addressed the topic of ethics, and how ethical considerations are made in the professional and organizational environments. Technical Communications Today defines ethics as system of moral, social, or cultural values that govern the conduct of an individual or community. Plainly stated, being ethical means doing the right thing at the right time. This is easier said than done, especially in the context of the workplace. It is not always clear how to behave ethically, especially when faced with making a critical decision that may lead to non-ideal outcomes.

This week's reading from TCT focused in on the various aspects of ethics that are involved in constructing technical documents, namely white papers. As the author noted, these ethical issues could be broken down into 3 particular categories: personal ethics, social ethics, and conservational ethics.

The reading from chapter five in the TCT this week discussed 3 different types of ethics which are: Personal ethics, social ethics, and conservation ethics. Personal ethics to me means the ethics you were taught by your family or learned through religion, that is what is right and what is wrong. Social ethics to me means that ethics you learned from the outside world, such as from laws, or other caring sources, and conservation ethics to me means ethics learned from the world that are in necessary to protect our ecosystem.