Down the slippery slope: Ethics and the technical writer as marketer

This article discusses some of the ethical dilemmas faced by writers who prepare marketing materials in engineering organizations; such writers include traditional technical writers whose documents are influenced by the marketing interests of the company and “boundary spanners” who write both technical and promotional materials. The article describes social, political, economic, and legal changes in the professions during the last 30 years and the growing influence of market‐driven decisions on ethical decision‐making. It briefly surveys the marketing literature that engineering marketers are reading. Finally, it suggests a question that marketing writers should ask themselves in examining rhetorical choices.