In “Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices” by John Duffy, he talks about the relationship between the writer and the reader and making good ethical choices. The reader also has the responsibility to be non-biased when reading. John brings up the example of when an author is writing, they should think to themselves, “What kind of writer do I wish to be? What are my obligations to my readers?” When the writer is composing a text, the writer addresses others. These questions are important to think about as a writer is writing anything because this is how writers get their point across to any audience. Some writers may write to pursuade, some may write to inspire and some may write simply to entertain their audience. As a writer, they need to communicate their message clearly with the audience and should be fair, honest, and accurate in their story so that they are not lying to their audience, and keeping them hooked to the story.
Readers should have open-mindedness, goodwill and humility which is only respectful to the writer. John also covers that writing plays as part of our moral life and how we should write our words , to whom we should speak and what the consequences of our words may be. Anything we write is to be carefully decided so that the conseuqences of our work are positive rather than negative. When you writing to pursuade an audience, this must include honesty, fairness, accuracy and accountability. Making ethical choices while writing will completely shape the way we write. We must watch what we say and who we write to. Is what we have written appropriate? What will be the consequences of my actions? Even after the questions are answered, while writing the story, we must go back and rethink, and even get another set of eyes to do it as well so that the written piece is ethical, and are high quality in multiple audience’s minds. Writing is a reflection of the authors feelings. Writers can always do their very best to remain ethical but in the end, will the writing be ethical to the reader?
As a reader, i never thought about what writers might worry about. There is so much more involved when writers are engaged and have to be weary of their decisions when writing and story or whatever the medium may be at the time. But not only that, writers may be trying to teach a certain audience ethics in general.
