When you make choices throughout your day, week, and life you decide if they are right or wrong. This goes for writing as well. Not only do we make choices like what we want to write about and what medium we want to use to convey those ideas, but we also make choices regarding if the overall writing is ethical or not. To make an ethical decision is to contemplate the morals behind our motivation for writing. This may come as the relationship between the author and reader is established in a piece of writing.
“Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices” is written by John Duffy and is featured in Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle’s “Naming What We Know“. Duffy describes ethical choices within writing as choices the author must make while writing to set themselves up as a writer.
The author may ask themselves questions throughout the writing process such as using rhetorical situations. As the author works through the piece of writing they must establish a relationship between themselves and the readers to effectively convey their point or purpose.
When we look at the ethical choices that the author makes such as using certain terms, tone, and sense of morality throughout their writing we can establish that ethical connection to the author.
Poets and fictional writers may have a playful or creative tone throughout their writing, whereas a scholarly journal expert may contain the use of proper terminology and series tone to convey their point. Both of these examples provide fitting examples for ethical choices that authors make within their writing.
As both a reader and writer we make ethical decisions as we construct a piece of writing and while reading one. These ethical choices allow us to connect to the author and their reasoning for writing. Having the capability to depict these ethical choices the author takes is pertinent in how their message is perceived and vice versa.
As Duffy states “Writing involves ethical choices because every time you write for another person, we purpose a relationship with other human beings, our readers.” (pp. 31) we are able to depict that his tone is sincere and purposeful. Duffy’s ethical decision of conveying his opinions carefully, he efficiently creates a relationship with the reader, taking the quote quite literally. By making ethical choices, we are able to establish a relationship with the reader.
Take the book series junie b. jones wrote by Barbra Park, for example, there are frequent grammar mistakes throughout the book. This is due to the journalistic style that the author made an ethical choice to do this because Junie B. Jones is about 6 years old. This ethical choice to have grammar errors is relatable to other children. That connection between author and reader is established through grammar errors. It also allows others to appreciate the ethical choices Park made as a writer as well.
When looking into why and how authors make their ethical choices while writing, allows for both an expansion and complication of our understandings of writing and what the process entails.
#ethics #readersandwriters #revisionprocess #writtingprocess
“Full of choices”
“Kermit the frog franticly typing on a typewriter”
