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Featuring specially commissioned chapters from scholars and practitioners across the field, this handbook serves as a touchstone for those who wish to do ethical technical and professional communication in its myriad forms.
List of contents
Introduction: Ethics in Technical and Professional Communication
Derek G. Ross Part I. Why Ethics? 1. Why Ethics? Using Ethics as the Basis for General Decision-Making
Keisha E. McKenzie 2. Ethics in the Classroom
Aimee Kendall Roundtree 3. Ethical Considerations in Communication Research
Johanna Phelps 4. Ethics in Workplace Research
Clay Spinuzzi 5. Ethics in Service Learning
Susan A. Youngblood 6. Codes of Ethics in Professional and Technical Communication
Heidi L. Everett and Emil B. Towner Part II. Foundations: What Are Ethics, and How Do They Fit into Technical and Professional Communication? 7. Metaethics, Technology, and the Value of Ethics in Technical and Professional Communication
Jared S. Colton 8. Character/Virtue Ethics
Steve Holmes 9. Duty/Deontological Ethics
Beau Pihlaja 10. Consequentialist, Utilitarian, and Hedonistic Ethical Approaches
Mike Duncan 11. Rights-Based Ethics
Kristin C. Bennett 12. Divine Command, Universalist Ethics, and Discernment
Elizabeth L. Angeli and Conor M. Kelly 13. Dialogue and Dialogic Ethics
Michael J. Salvo 14. Feminist Ethics
Derek M. Sparby 15. Ethics of Care in Technical Communication Research and Practice
Denise Tillery 16. Queer Ethics
Michael J. Faris 17. Chicanx Ethics in TPC: Thinking Pragmatically About Chicanidad
Gabriel Lorenzo Aguilar 18. Indigenous Ethics
Emily Legg 19. Ubuntu: An African Ethics
Josephine Walwema Part III. Local Application: What Does "Being Ethical" Mean to the Individual? 20. Writing Ethically
Lydia Wilkes 21. Designing Ethically: Accounting and Advocating for Inclusivity and Justice
Jason Tham 22. Coding Ethically as a Writer and Designer
Adam Strantz 23. Ethics in Technical Editing
Jo Mackiewicz 24. Marketing Content Ethically
Scott A. Mogull 25. Teaching Ethically
Yanar Hashlamon and Christa Teston 26. Researching Ethically
Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq Part IV. Institutional Application: What Does "Being Ethical" Mean at the Institutional Level? 27. Institutional Marketing and Ethics
Chris Dayley 28. Ethics and Plain Language
Kira Dreher and Russell Willerton 29. The Ethics of Accessible Design
Sushil K. Oswal 30. UX and Ethics
Yingying Tang 31. Business Ethics: Adopting an Ethical Mindshift and Building Multicultural Ethical Capital
Binod Sundararajan and Tasnima Islam 32. Ethics and Infrastructure
Michelle McMullin 33. Transnational Crisis Communication and Ethics
Sweta Baniya Part V. The Future of Ethics in Technical Communication: What Happens Next? 34. The Future of Environmental Ethics
Derek G. Ross 35. The Future of Ethics in Mobile Technologies: An Ethic of Inclusion Elevating DEIA Principles to the Forefront of Intersections of Mobile Technologies, Accessibility, and Place
Brett Oppegaard 36. The Future of Ethics in Political Communication
Isidore K. Dorpenyo 37. The Future of Ethics in Medical Communication
Erin Fitzgerald 38. The Future of Disability and Accessibility Ethics
Rachel Bryson 39. The Future of Multilingualism, Culture, and Ethics
Laura Pigozzi 40. The Future of Ethics and Social Justice
Chris Lindgren, Julie Gerdes, and Halcyon Lawrence 41. The Future of Ethics and Community Engagement
Godwin Y. Agboka 42. The Future of Risk Communication and Ethics
Huiling Ding 43. The Future of Apparent Feminist Ethics: Taking Rhetorical Action
Erin A. Clark and S.B. McCulloch 44. The Future of Ethics in Crisis Communication
Rob Grace and Meghan Dunn 45. The Future of Ethics in Industry: Generative AI and the Production of Technical Content
Dan Card Part VI. Afterword 46. Revisiting Ethics in Human-Machine Relations: Technical and Professional Communication and Emergent Intelligences
Steven B. Katz
About the author
Derek G. Ross is the Hargis Professor of Writing Studies in the Master of Technical and Professional Communication Program at Auburn University, USA. He is the editor of
Topic-Driven Environmental Rhetoric (Routledge, 2017), co-author of
Document Design: From Process to Product in Professional Communication (2025), and a past editor of
Communication Design Quarterly.
Summary
Featuring specially commissioned chapters from scholars and practitioners across the field, this handbook serves as a touchstone for those who wish to do ethical technical and professional communication in its myriad forms.
