The Routledge Handbook of Ethics in Technical and Professional Communication

Featuring specially commissioned chapters from scholars and practitioners across the field, this handbook serves as a touchstone for those who wish to do ethical technical and professional communication in its myriad forms.

Offering an overview of what “ethics” in technical and professional communication looks like, what “being ethical” entails, and what it means to “do ethical work,” this handbook is divided into five interrelated parts and an Afterword:

• Why Ethics?
• Foundations: What Are Ethics, and How Do They Fit into Technical and Professional Communication?
• Local Application: What Does “Being Ethical” Mean to the Individual?
• Institutional Application: What Does “Being Ethical” Mean at the Institutional Level?
• The Future of Ethics in Technical Communication: What Happens Next?

The first of its kind, this accessibly written handbook explores descriptive, normative, applied, and meta-ethics. It will be an indispensable resource for researchers and students in the fields of Technical and Professional Communication, Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Design.

Derek G. Ross is the Hargis Professor of Writing Studies in the Master of Technical and Professional Communication Program at Auburn University, USA. He is the editor of Topic-Driven Environmental Rhetoric (Routledge, 2017), co-author of Document Design: From Process to Product in Professional Communication (2025), and a past editor of Communication Design Quarterly.