By Jennifer Mooney, Director, Technical & Scientific Communication Program
Department of English, Virginia Tech
In the broadest sense, communicating clearly is itself an ethical act – you owe it to your audience to respect their time and their needs by telling them what they need to know as clearly and concisely as possible. Beyond that basic premise, though, your ethics determine
- What you say
- How you say it
- Who you say it to
To help guide those decisions, the Society for Technical Communication outlines 6 major principles for ethical communication:
- Legality
- Honesty
- Confidentiality
- Quality
- Fairness
- Professionalism
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