Further Reading — Chapter 38: Ethics and Responsibility in Technical Writing

Tier 1 (verified landmark works) and Tier 2 (real, widely-attributed ideas and public records described by function). No invented citations, DOIs, or page numbers. Where a work's exact edition or year isn't the point, it isn't claimed.

Tier 1 — Foundational and verifiable

  • Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983)* and Visual Explanations (1997).* Tufte's analysis of the Challenger charts—how an accurate presentation can scatter the decisive pattern out of sight—is the direct source for this chapter's data-display reading of the case (and for Chapter 9). Read it for the principle that accuracy is not the bar; making the critical relationship unmissable is.

  • Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (the "Rogers Commission Report," 1986). The official public investigation. Cited here for the established facts only: the physical cause (O-ring seal failure), the cold-temperature contributing factor, and the existence of the pre-launch teleconference. The volume containing the personal observations of the physicist on the commission is widely read for its account of the engineering culture; treat individual recollections as attributed perspective, not settled fact.

  • U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, The Design, Development & Certification of the Boeing 737 MAX (final committee report, 2020), and the official aircraft-accident investigation reports issued by the relevant national air-safety authorities for Lion Air Flight 610 (2018) and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (2019). These are the public records behind this chapter's 737 MAX discussion. Read them for the documented, multi-factor account—engineering, certification, organizational, and communication factors—and as a model of why a writing textbook stays narrow ("omission in safety-critical docs is a grave ethical choice") rather than overclaiming a single cause.

  • The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) codes of ethics; the Society for Technical Communication (STC) ethical principles. Professional codes describing honesty, accuracy, and responsibility to the public. Useful as the formal articulation of the duties this chapter argues from first principles—worth reading to see how your own field names the obligation.

Tier 2 — Real ideas, attributed without false precision

  • The patient-safety and health-literacy literature on medication errors. Decades of work (associated with national patient-safety bodies and institutes of medicine/health) document that ambiguous abbreviations, unclear dose expressions (e.g., trailing zeros), and poorly designed labels and instructions contribute to medication errors. This is a well-established body of findings rather than a single paper; it grounds §38.8 and the Chapter 36 callback. Search for "do not use" abbreviation lists and plain-language labeling guidance from recognized safety organizations.

  • Writing on the ethics of technical and professional communication (an established subfield in technical-communication journals and textbooks). Recurring themes—accuracy, the limits of "I just wrote it," responsibility to the end user, and the line between persuasion and manipulation—are widely taught. Read it for the vocabulary of duty-of-care and the "reasonable reader" framing this chapter borrows.

  • Research on disclosure and trust. That acknowledging the limitations of one's own evidence tends to increase a reader's trust (rather than decrease it) is widely reported across communication and decision research. A Tier-2 attribution—the principle is solid; resist citing a single study as if it settled it.

  • Williams (& Bizup), Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace; Zinsser, On Writing Well. Not ethics books, but the source of this book's craft. Re-read them through this chapter's lens: every technique is double-edged, and the reader who has internalized §38.5 reads them as power to be aimed responsibly.

How to use these honestly

When you draw on the Challenger or 737 MAX cases in your own work, model this chapter's discipline (Chapter 11): attribute the cause to the official investigation, attribute the visual analysis to Tufte, and refuse to invent quotations, internal text, dates, or casualty figures. The citation honesty is not separate from the ethics—it is the ethics, practiced on the cases that teach it.

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