Ethics Assignment #4: Responsbilities of Technical Writers

A woman gets a cup of hot coffee one morning. Balancing it between her legs for a second, the cup spills and she sustains serious burns. She sues the restaurant for damages sustained. This, of course, is a true case. As you hold your McDonald's cut of coffee, it helpfully claims that the contents are "hot."

This is seemingly a no-brainer. What? Coffee is supposed to be hot? It can burn me? While these are likely lessons learned in the second grade, we as technical writers shouldn't make any assumptions on the intelligence of our readers. In the tragic case of a jet incident, where the engine exploded, the technical writer would hopefully had put a warning on the engine or in the instruction manual.

It's kind of funny to read "Do not eat" on a package of ant traps or caution signs for people with heart problems not to ride roller coasters. But in the day and age of lawsuits, technical writers owe it to themselves, their companies, and readers to state the obvious. But readers need to read the instruction manual. If the instructions are there and they don't read it, they really can't blame anyone but themselves.