Technical Communication and Ethics - Essay Example

The company has made an express statement about the power drill—it is not reasonable to expect a child to operate it safely. Therefore, the statement about the ease of operation should be changed, along with the drawing, so that the two agree on the assumption of this reasonable “fitness for a particular purpose” (Product, 2009).
Ethical Case: In this case, the DMX-450® is advertised as a product that “makes downloading large email files almost instant. You’ll no longer have to wait for large file scans.” The ethical breach that has occurred here is that the content violates the reader’s assumptions of fact-based and rational explanation of the product. Instead, the DMX is being advertised as operating at a speed that is impossible, or approaching impossible; it is not an objective or fact-based description of what the software is capable of (such as a specific baud rate or downloading speed). I would tell the co-worker that s/he should trust their consumer more, and stop trying to talk down to them with lofty exaggerations; I would advise them to simply tell the consumer about the product, rather than boasting, to make a better ethical impression. This way, the consumer will feel more secure and trusting about the company’s honesty. Read More