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2.2 Ethics in Public Speaking

Learning objectives.

Understand how to apply the National Communication Association (NCA) Credo for Ethical Communication within the context of public speaking.
Understand how you can apply ethics to your public speaking preparation process.

The study of ethics in human communication is hardly a recent endeavor. One of the earliest discussions of ethics in communication (and particularly in public speaking) was conducted by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus . In the centuries since Plato’s time, an entire subfield within the discipline of human communication has developed to explain and understand communication ethics.

Communication Code of Ethics

In 1999, the National Communication Association officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication (see the following sidebar). Ultimately, the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication.

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

Questions of right and wrong arise whenever people communicate. Ethical communication is fundamental to responsible thinking, decision making, and the development of relationships and communities within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media. Moreover, ethical communication enhances human worth and dignity by fostering truthfulness, fairness, responsibility, personal integrity, and respect for self and others. We believe that unethical communication threatens the quality of all communication and consequently the well-being of individuals and the society in which we live. Therefore we, the members of the National Communication Association, endorse and are committed to practicing the following principles of ethical communication:

We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.
We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and society.
We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.
We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

Source: http://www.natcom.org/Default.aspx?id=134&terms=Credo

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

The NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is designed to inspire discussions of ethics related to all aspects of human communication. For our purposes, we want to think about each of these principles in terms of how they affect public speaking.

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

A woman crossing her fingers behind her back

Carmella Fernando – Promise? – CC BY 2.0.

The second part of information honesty is to fully disclose where we obtain the information in our speeches. As ethical speakers, it is important to always cite your sources of information within the body of a speech. Whether you conducted an interview or read a newspaper article, you must tell your listeners where the information came from. We mentioned earlier in this chapter that using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism . The word “plagiarism” stems from the Latin word plagiaries , or kidnapper. The American Psychological Association states in its publication manual that ethical speakers do not claim “words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due” (American Psychological Association, 2001).

In the previous sentence, we placed quotation marks around the sentence to indicate that the words came from the American Psychological Association and not from us. When speaking informally, people sometimes use “air quotes” to signal direct quotations—but this is not a recommended technique in public speaking. Instead, speakers need to verbally tell an audience when they are using someone else’s information. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When Senator Joseph Biden was running for president of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that the university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result.

Even if you are not running for president of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is important to you as a student. Many universities have policies that include dismissal from the institution for student plagiarism of academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lower credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing grade on your assignment or expulsion from your school. While we will talk in more detail about plagiarism later in this book, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of giving credit to the speakers and authors whose ideas we pass on within our own speeches and writing.

Speakers tend to fall into one of three major traps with plagiarism. The first trap is failing to tell the audience the source of a direct quotation. In the previous paragraph, we used a direct quotation from the American Psychological Association; if we had not used the quotation marks and clearly listed where the cited material came from, you, as a reader, wouldn’t have known the source of that information. To avoid plagiarism, you always need to tell your audience when you are directly quoting information within a speech.

The second plagiarism trap public speakers fall into is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech you talk about those three types of schoolyard bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing. Typically, the only information you do not need to cite is information that is general knowledge. General knowledge is information that is publicly available and widely known by a large segment of society. For example, you would not need to provide a citation within a speech for the name of Delaware’s capital. Although many people do not know the capital of Delaware without looking it up, this information is publicly available and easily accessible, so assigning credit to one specific source is not useful or necessary.

The third plagiarism trap that speakers fall into is re-citing someone else’s sources within a speech. To explain this problem, let’s look at a brief segment from a research paper written by Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam:

The main character on the hit Fox television show House , Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, “It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what” (Shore & Barclay, 2005). This notion that “everybody lies” is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead (1975), the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as “completely honest.”

In this example, we see that the authors of this paragraph cited information from two external sources: Shore and Barclay and Tummer, Edgley, and Olmstead. These two groups of authors are given credit for their ideas. The authors make it clear that they did not produce the television show House or conduct the study that found that only 38.5 percent of statements were completely honest. Instead, these authors cited information found in two other locations. This type of citation is appropriate.

However, if a speaker read the paragraph and said the following during a speech, it would be plagiarism: “According to Wrench DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam, in a study of 130 participants, only 38.5 percent of the responses were completely honest.” In this case, the speaker is attributing the information cited to the authors of the paragraph, which is not accurate. If you want to cite the information within your speech, you need to read the original article by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead and cite that information yourself.

There are two main reasons we do this. First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead really actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information.

The second reason we do not re-cite someone else’s sources within our speeches is because it’s intellectually dishonest. You owe your listeners an honest description of where the facts you are relating came from, not just the name of an author who cited those facts. It is more work to trace the original source of a fact or statistic, but by doing that extra work you can avoid this plagiarism trap.

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

If everyone only listened to one source of information, then we would be easily manipulated and controlled. For this reason, we believe that individuals should be willing to listen to a range of speakers on a given subject. As listeners or consumers of communication, we should realize that this diversity of perspectives enables us to be more fully informed on a subject. Imagine voting in an election after listening only to the campaign speeches of one candidate. The perspective of that candidate would be so narrow that you would have no way to accurately understand and assess the issues at hand or the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing candidates. Unfortunately, some voters do limit themselves to listening only to their candidate of choice and, as a result, base their voting decisions on incomplete—and, not infrequently, inaccurate—information.

Listening to diverse perspectives includes being willing to hear dissenting voices. Dissent is by nature uncomfortable, as it entails expressing opposition to authority, often in very unflattering terms. Legal scholar Steven H. Shiffrin has argued in favor of some symbolic speech (e.g., flag burning) because we as a society value the ability of anyone to express their dissent against the will and ideas of the majority (Shiffrin, 1999). Ethical communicators will be receptive to dissent, no matter how strongly they may disagree with the speaker’s message because they realize that a society that forbids dissent cannot function democratically.

Ultimately, honoring free speech and seeking out a variety of perspectives is very important for all listeners. We will discuss this idea further in the chapter on listening.

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

This is another ethical characteristic that is specifically directed at receivers of a message. As listeners, we often let our perceptions of a speaker’s nonverbal behavior—his or her appearance, posture, mannerisms, eye contact, and so on—determine our opinions about a message before the speaker has said a word. We may also find ourselves judging a speaker based on information we have heard about him or her from other people. Perhaps you have heard from other students that a particular teacher is a really boring lecturer or is really entertaining in class. Even though you do not have personal knowledge, you may prejudge the teacher and his or her message based on information you have been given from others. The NCA credo reminds us that to be ethical listeners, we need to avoid such judgments and instead make an effort to listen respectfully; only when we have understood a speaker’s viewpoint are we ready to begin forming our opinions of the message.

Listeners should try to objectively analyze the content and arguments within a speech before deciding how to respond. Especially when we disagree with a speaker, we might find it difficult to listen to the content of the speech and, instead, work on creating a rebuttal the entire time the speaker is talking. When this happens, we do not strive to understand the speaker and do not respect the speaker.

Of course, this does not just affect the listener in the public speaking situation. As speakers, we are often called upon to evaluate and refute potential arguments against our positions. While we always want our speeches to be as persuasive as possible, we do ourselves and our audiences a disservice when we downplay, distort, or refuse to mention important arguments from the opposing side. Fairly researching and evaluating counterarguments is an important ethical obligation for the public speaker.

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

Human communication is a skill that can and should be taught. We strongly believe that you can become a better, more ethical speaker. One of the reasons the authors of this book teach courses in public speaking and wrote this college textbook on public speaking is that we, as communication professionals, have an ethical obligation to provide others, including students like you, with resources and opportunities to become better speakers.

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

Second, it is important for a speaker to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding. To do this, you should first learn as much as possible about your audience, a process called audience analysis. We will discuss this topic in more detail in the audience analysis chapter.

To create a climate of caring and mutual respect, it is important for us as speakers to be open with our audiences so that our intentions and perceptions are clear. Nothing alienates an audience faster than a speaker with a hidden agenda unrelated to the stated purpose of the speech. One of our coauthors once listened to a speaker give a two-hour talk, allegedly about workplace wellness, which actually turned out to be an infomercial for the speaker’s weight-loss program. In this case, the speaker clearly had a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda, which made the audience feel disrespected.

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning. Unfortunately, some speakers take information and use it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information. One place we see distortion frequently is in the political context, where politicians cite a statistic or the results of a study and either completely alter the information or use it in a deceptive manner. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center ( http://www.factcheck.org ), and the St. Petersburg Times’s Politifact ( http://www.politifact.com ) are nonpartisan organizations devoted to analyzing political messages and demonstrating how information has been distorted.

Expressions of intolerance and hatred that are to be avoided include using ageist , heterosexist , racist , sexist , and any other form of speech that demeans or belittles a group of people. Hate speech from all sides of the political spectrum in our society is detrimental to ethical communication. As such, we as speakers should be acutely aware of how an audience may perceive words that could be considered bigoted. For example, suppose a school board official involved in budget negotiations used the word “shekels” to refer to money, which he believes the teachers’ union should be willing to give up (Associated Press, 2011). The remark would be likely to prompt accusations of anti-Semitism and to distract listeners from any constructive suggestions the official might have for resolving budget issues. Although the official might insist that he meant no offense, he damaged the ethical climate of the budget debate by using a word associated with bigotry.

At the same time, it is important for listeners to pay attention to expressions of intolerance or hatred. Extremist speakers sometimes attempt to disguise their true agendas by avoiding bigoted “buzzwords” and using mild-sounding terms instead. For example, a speaker advocating the overthrow of a government might use the term “regime change” instead of “revolution”; similarly, proponents of genocide in various parts of the world have used the term “ethnic cleansing” instead of “extermination.” By listening critically to the gist of a speaker’s message as well as the specific language he or she uses, we can see how that speaker views the world.

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We believe that finding and bringing to light situations of inequality and injustice within our society is important. Public speaking has been used throughout history to point out inequality and injustice, from Patrick Henry arguing against the way the English government treated the American colonists and Sojourner Truth describing the evils of slavery to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Army Lt. Dan Choi’s speeches arguing that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” is unjust. Many social justice movements have started because young public speakers have decided to stand up for what they believe is fair and just.

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

Similarly, we have an obligation to respect others’ privacy and confidentiality when speaking. If information is obtained from printed or publicly distributed material, it’s perfectly appropriate to use that information without getting permission, as long as you cite it. However, when you have a great anecdote one of your friends told you in confidence, or access to information that is not available to the general public, it is best to seek permission before using the information in a speech.

This ethical obligation even has legal implications in many government and corporate contexts. For example, individuals who work for the Central Intelligence Agency are legally precluded from discussing their work in public without prior review by the agency. And companies such as Google also have policies requiring employees to seek permission before engaging in public speaking in which sensitive information might be leaked.

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

Furthermore, attempting to persuade a group of people to take any action means you should make sure that you understand the consequences of that action. Whether you are persuading people to vote for a political candidate or just encouraging them to lose weight, you should know what the short-term and long-term consequences of that decision could be. While our predictions of short-term and long-term consequences may not always be right, we have an ethical duty to at least think through the possible consequences of our speeches and the actions we encourage.

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Thus far in this section we’ve introduced you to the basics of thinking through the ethics of public speaking. Knowing about ethics is essential, but even more important to being an ethical public speaker is putting that knowledge into practice by thinking through possible ethical pitfalls prior to standing up and speaking out. Table 2.1 “Public Speaking Ethics Checklist” is a checklist based on our discussion in this chapter to help you think through some of these issues.

Table 2.1 Public Speaking Ethics Checklist

Key Takeaways

All eight of the principles espoused in the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication can be applied to public speaking. Some of the principles relate more to the speaker’s role in communication, while others relate to both the speaker’s and the audience’s role in public speech.
When preparing a speech, it is important to think about the ethics of public speaking from the beginning. When a speaker sets out to be ethical in his or her speech from the beginning, arriving at ethical speech is much easier.
Fill out the “Public Speaking Ethics Checklist” while thinking about your first speech. Did you mark “true” for any of the statements? If so, why? What can you do as a speaker to get to the point where you can check them all as “false”?
Robert is preparing a speech about legalizing marijuana use in the United States. He knows that his roommate wrote a paper on the topic last semester and asks his roommate about the paper in an attempt to gather information. During his speech, Robert orally cites his roommate by name as a source of his information but does not report that the source is his roommate, whose experience is based on writing a paper. In what ways does Robert’s behavior violate the guidelines set out in the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication?

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author, p. 349.

Associated Press. (2011, May 5). Conn. shekel shellacking. New York Post .

Shiffrin, S. H. (1999). Dissent, injustice and the meanings of America . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Article contents

Communication ethics.

Lisbeth A. Lipari Lisbeth A. Lipari Department of Communication, Denison University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.58
Published online: 27 February 2017

Communication ethics concerns the creation and evaluation of goodness in all aspects and manifestations of communicative interaction. Because both communication and ethics are tacitly or explicitly inherent in all human interactions, everyday life is fraught with intentional and unintentional ethical questions—from reaching for a cup of coffee to speaking critically in a public meeting. Thus ethical questions infuse all areas of the discipline, including rhetoric, media studies, intercultural/international communication, relational and organization communication, as well as other iterations of the field.

moral reasoning
normativity
communication and critical studies

Introduction

Broadly conceived, ethics concerns the creation and evaluation of goodness, or “the good,” by responding to the general question: How shall we live ? What makes any given decision good or right or wrong? Is it ethically good for governments to persuade poor people to fight, and perhaps die, in wars that disproportionately benefit the wealthy? Is it an ethical good for society to provide access to free and quality education to all children? Are politicians obligated to tell the truth to their constituents regardless of the consequence? By wrestling with the ancient human question of what is good , ethicists disclose the inherently social and political nature of communicative phenomenon—whether they are linked to laws, morals, values, and customs and whether they vary from region to region or culture to culture. The word ethics itself comes from the Greek word ethikos , which means habit or custom, whereas the word moral comes from the Latin translation of the Greek word ethikos . Ethics govern and yet are distinct from law. That is, while laws encode values and customs that will be enforced by the power of the state, more generally ethics concern those values and beliefs (whether enforced by law or not) that a society or group or individual believe will most likely create goodness. But as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others have famously said, one has a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. And the questions of what makes a law or action just or unjust, who gets to deliberate, and how we decide are some of the central questions of communication ethics.

In the field of communication ethics , scholars draw upon a variety of ethical theories to address questions pertaining to goodness involving all manifestations of communicative interaction. And because both communication and ethics are tacitly or explicitly inherent in all human interactions, everyday life is fraught with intentional and unintentional ethical questions—from reaching for a cup of coffee to speaking up in a public meeting. Thus, ethical questions infuse all areas of the discipline of communication, including rhetoric, media studies, intercultural/international communication, relational and organization communication, and all other iterations of the discipline. Some scholars specialize in communication ethics as a subfield of communication studies with applications to all aspects of the field, while others work more theoretically in search of philosophical inquiry and understanding. After a brief introduction to the history of the field, this article sketches three central characteristics that shape contours of communication ethics scholarship—heterogeneity, interconnectivity, and historicity—and then goes on to follow three central concerns of communication ethics scholarship—integrity, power, and alterity. A brief overview of five modes of ethical reasoning will close the article.

Brief History of the Discipline

Some scholars trace the origins of communication ethics to American public education in the early 1900s, when questions about “speech hygiene” drove researchers to examine the role of education in fostering qualities of moral character and “mental health” in students (Arnett, 1987 ; Gehrke, 2009 ). Scholarship in subsequent decades came to emphasize speech education as a means to prepare citizens for participation, as both speakers and listeners, in democracy, and particularly as a way to resist fascist oratory. Developed at a time when access to education and the democratic process was shifting from elites to the masses, these scholars focused on speech education as a means to develop moral excellence in psychological, cognitive, and communicative terms they traced to the classical canon of rhetoric, such as the great Roman teacher/scholar Quintilian’s definition of rhetoric as “the good man speaking well” (Quintilian, 2006 ). Postwar decades in the United States brought increasing attention to questions of communication ethics involving demagoguery, persuasion, propaganda, and human rights (Lomas, 1961 ; Nilsen, 1960 ; Parker, 1972 ). Central to these studies were concern for accuracy and truthfulness such that “in each persuasive situation there is an ethical obligation to provide listeners with such information as it is possible to provide in the time available and with the medium used” (Nilsen, 1960 , p. 201).

In the 1980s and 1990s, communication scholars affiliated with what was then the Speech Communication Association (now the National Communication Association) inaugurated the first communication ethics commission and, subsequently, the first national conference on ethics (Arnett, Bell, & Fritz, 2010 ). These early scholars, such as Ken Anderson, James A. Jaksa, Richard Johannesen, Clifford Christians, and Ron Arnett, seeded what was to become a fertile field of scholarship connecting all areas of the discipline in ways that bridged philosophical and applied approaches. Also in the latter half of the 20th century , scholars in communication ethics began to wrestle with the problematics of power and truth in order to interrogate ethical questions regarding the relationship between social standpoint and social justice. Influenced by continental theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francoise Lyotard, and Michel Foucault, communication ethics were sometimes characterized by the struggle between objectivist, absolutist questions of truth versus subjective, relativist conceptions of truth. Scholars critical of objectivist perspectives drew upon insights from critical, critical race, feminist, postcolonial and postmodernist theories that challenged prevailing orthodoxies about the nature of identity, the status of the subject, and the role of power in constructing models of “the good.” Scholars such as Molefi Asante, Larry Gross, and Janice Hocker Rushing undertook examinations of the relationship of ethics to racism, sexuality, and sexism (Asante, 1992 ; Gross, 1991 ; Rushing, 1993 ).

Influenced in part by Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotlean work, “After Virtue,” as well as Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, public sphere theory, and theory of communicative action, scholars in the last part of the 20th and first part of the 21st century became increasingly interested in ethical questions pertaining to truth conditions in political discourse, such as journalism, political rhetoric, and discourse in the public sphere (Baynes, 1994 ; Ettema & Glasser, 1988 ). At roughly the same time, an increasing number of communication scholars began to draw on the existentialist and hermeneutic continental scholarship of philosophers such as Martin Buber, Martin Heidegger, and Emmanuel Levinas to explore questions of alterity and otherness as it pertained to relational, rhetorical, and mediated communication (Hyde, 2001 ; Pinchevski, 2005 ).

Over the last 100 years, communication ethics has engaged questions about how to create ethical worlds with our communication processes, be they individual, face-to-face, mediated, or institutional. The area of corporate ethics, for example, concerns not “green-leafing” public relations, but institutional practices that create goodness—such as transparency, accountability, and profit-sharing—not just for owners or shareholders, but for all stakeholders including workers, the earth, the animals, and so forth (Groom & Fritz, 2012 ). Some ethicists, such as Zygmunt Bauman, would likely argue that the concept of corporate ethics is itself oxymoronic: “No moral impulse can survive, let alone emerge unscathed from, the acid test of usefulness or profit. All immorality begins with demanding such a test” (Bauman, 1993 ). In short, communication ethics concerns the discernment of the good, seeking to balance the competing values, needs, and wants of multiple constituencies inhabiting pluralistic democracies.

General Characteristics: Heterogeneity, Interconnectivity, and Historicity

At this point in time, communication ethics scholarship can be described by three central characteristics: heterogeneity, interconnectivity, and historicity. Communication ethics is marked by heterogeneity through the sheer multiplicity of ethical concerns, disciplinary contexts, theoretical perspectives, and modes of reasoning it can pursue. A question about deception, for example, could be examined in any number of communication contexts (e.g., social media, political campaigns, workplace organization, family relations), from any of a number of theoretical perspectives or concerns (e.g., ideological, dialogic, rhetorical, universalist), employing any number of modes of ethical reasoning (e.g., virtue, deontological, teleological, care) and any combination within and between these categories. Often ethical perspectives and values bump into one another, and the ethicist may employ multiple modes of thought to weigh the priorities of ethical value against another—questions about harassment for example, concerns the values of freedom of speech balanced against freedom from intimidation and harassment.

But heterogeneity should not be mistaken for relativism (Brummett, 1981 ). 1 Because ethical questions are embedded both tacitly and explicitly in all human interactions, communication scholars look at both covert as well as overt questions of ethics. Mission statements, for example, may set an overt frame for ethical values and ideals that a given organization aspires toward, but they may not facilitate the recognition of more hidden ethical questions that play out in daily operations. Similarly, ethical codes and credos that stipulate their norms and values are often written at the level of the individual and therefore obscure how institutions, organizations, and groups also function as (un)ethical agents. Codes and credos can also interfere with individual ethical agency and decision-making by removing from conscious awareness the need for vigilant attention to ethical issues that may be hidden. Other forms of overt ethics involve public argument, laws, policies, principals, guidelines, and so forth. In contrast, tacit ethics are implicit patterns of communicative interaction institutions that have ethical implications. That is, communication ethics looks not merely at individual agency and intersubjective processes but also at institutional norms, structural arrangements, and systematic patterns. In communication ethics, ethical questions are a question of not (only) individual agency but of shared implicit and explicit habits, norms, and patterns of communicative action. Communication ethics is therefore quite deliberate in examining both overt and covert contexts.

Heterogeneity also arises through the sheer number of values that may come into conflict in any given situation. In the case of hate speech, for example, the values of free speech bump up against the values of freedom from intimidation, harassment, and violation. Similarly, from the purview of communication ethics, context can mean nearly, if not fully, everything. The question of what makes a convincing ethical argument changes from setting to setting. In the context of a religious setting, for example, reasoning based on tradition and authority might take precedence over reasoning based on compassion and care. Within any given religious community, people wrestle with questions about how much they shall be governed by intelligence, compassion, and outcome and how much by faith. When intelligence tells us one thing and compassion another, which should we trust? Similarly, tensions between local and state or federal control can also shape what values or modes of reasoning take precedence. The communication ethicist must face this nearly endlessly multiplicitous diversity in her inquiry into questions of the good.

Because communication ethics is an immanent subfield that, like the myriad processes of communication itself, is inextricable from the deeply interconnected manifestations of all human interaction, our communicative interactions are inevitably intertwined. Interdependency manifests in the recognition that humans are socially embedded beings and therefore that no self exists completely independent of the social conditions (e.g., language, customs, narratives, hierarchies) from which that self emerged. But it is not simply the self that may or may not consciously choose a given action; communication ethicists also look at how actions choose persons. A worker in a health insurance industry is given an incentive to deny health claims knowing not only that if she does not do it someone else will, but that if she refuses she will be fired and her family will lose its insurance, upon which her disabled child depends. How much ethical agency and “freedom” can such a worker exert? Similarly, the financial managers of this company know that without such incentives, the company will lose money leading to layoffs of workers and possibly denial of even more claims. Thus, not only can there be a kind of independent ethical agency that stands apart from the set of relations it inhabits, there is little possibility of any ethical agent perceiving or anticipating all these ethical interconnections. I may serve my family a healthy dinner of quinoa not knowing that, as an indirect result, thousands of peasants high in the Andes can no longer afford to feed their families the very grain they grow.

Communication ethics is also deeply responsive to the historical events, conditions, and conventions that give rise to every communicative interaction. This can be seen in work on public memory, an area fraught with ethical questions—which historical events are commemorated or memorialized, and which are forgotten (Bruner, 2006 ; Vivian, 2010 )? What events rise to the level of national concern—that is, which events are remembered so as to reflect a shared national or cultural identity? Why is there a Holocaust museum but not a Native American genocide museum? Why have there been no reparations for centuries of American slavery? History relates to ethics via other questions of narrative, public and private. What stories are told, from whose point of view? When or how are these stories punctuated, and who speaks and who is ignored? When communication ethics examines concerns of power, it also explores how struggles over meaning and meaning making are always in dialogue with past and present discourses and regimes of power. How do the historical tensions between the differing goals of public education (i.e., serving to foster public goods such as democracy, liberty and citizenship vs. imposing social control through social stratification, compulsory subordination, and coerced conformity) continue to play out in today’s public debates about education policy, from questions of No Child Left Behind to the neoliberal moves to privatization? And what are the implications of education policy for class position, labor conditions, and increasing economic inequality? What has led public discourses about public goods to be subsumed so readily under neoliberal discourses emphasizing self-sufficiency and individual autonomy (Oh & Banjo, 2012 ; Saunders, 2010 )?

Integrity: Truth, Truthfulness, and Trust

Questions of truth and trust have long been at the center of communication ethics inquiry. As she noted in her classic treatise On Lying , Sissela Bok argues that few if any human groups, organizations, institutions, or states could succeed without the background assumptions of truthfulness (Bok, 1979 ). Distinguishing between truth and truthfulness, Bok puts the burden upon an individual’s active intention—intentionally misleading others differs, to Bok, from unknowingly uttering a falsehood. This distinction between conscious intention and unintentional distortion has been central to studies of journalism ethics, where questions of staged, falsified, and censored news are central (Wilcox, 1961 ; Wulfemeyer, 1985 ; Zelizer, 2007 ). Other questions involve the role of objectivity in news, its epistemic (im)possibility, and the ethical implications distinguishing between impartiality and objectivity (Carey, 1989 ; Malcolm, 2011 ; Ward, 2004 ). The role of the press as a watchdog of democracy has also been of central concern to journalist ethicists, principally through its imagined role as the fourth estate (or branch) of American government and the ethical implications of increasingly concentrated corporate ownership (Bagdikian, 2004 ; Huff & Roth, 2013 ; McChesney, 2014 ). A host of other issues, such as censorship, omission, bias, confidentiality, deception, libel, misrepresentation, slander, and witness, have long been central to ethical concerns in journalism. And some scholars, such as Stephen Ward ( 2005 ), have argued for a new philosophical basis for journalism ethics.

But issues of integrity are not just central to journalism—other modes of mediated communication also give rise to ethical questions about appropriation, colonization, and misrepresentation in addition to the kinds of human interactions these media call forth (D’Arcy, 2012 ; Munshi, Broadfoot, & Smith, 2011 ). Jaron Lanier ( 2010 ), for example, has written extensively about ethical questions related to social media, including what he calls “Hive Mind” that induces mob behavior, an overall lack of independence, groupthink, and depersonalization. Lanier also finds fault with social media’s alienation of information from experience and the drive for anonymity that induces violation, reductionism, insincerity, and a general lack of intellectual modesty. Similarly, in an examination of fearless speech, Foucault ( 2001 ) looks into a series of questions about the philosophical foundations of parrhesia: “Who is able to tell the truth? What are the moral, the ethical, and the spiritual conditions which entitle someone to present himself as a truth-teller? About what topics is it important to tell the truth? What are the consequences of telling the truth?”

Ethical questions about truth and truth telling also show up in rhetorical studies, especially those involving regarding history and politics (Johnstone, 1980 ; Newman, 1995 ). Whistleblowing is another communicative phenomenon where issues of integrity meet ethics. Ostensibly, “whistleblowing happens when ethical discourse becomes impossible, when acting ethically is tantamount to becoming a scapegoat” (Alford, 2001 , p. 36). Yet, according to Alford, the common narrative of the whistleblower as a martyr to truth who is seeking institutional redemption is not played out in the lived experiences of whistleblowers. In fact, the whistleblower is by definition only constituted by processes of institutional retaliation wherein the whistleblower is punished and the institution merely carries on. Even laws supposedly aimed to protect whistleblowers function merely at the level of procedure, which work in turn to reinforce institutional power leaving questions of morality as purely private, not public, affairs. “To act politically in this depoliticized public space is to be a scapegoat” (Alford, 2001 , p. 130). Other areas involving integrity in a wide variety of communication ethics contexts include questions of authenticity, betrayal, cynicism, demagoguery, denial, disclosure, distortion, erasure, exposure, falsification, mystification, obfuscation, omission, secrecy, selectivity, silence, surveillance, suspicion, and transparency (Herrscher, 2002 ; Ivie, 1980 ).

Power: Justice, Normativity, and Force

Power is another central thread in communication ethics scholarship that reveals the extent to which politics and ethics are deeply interconnected. Power is here understood to describe the capacity to impose, maintain, repair, and transform particular modes of social structuring that explicitly and implicitly condition our ideas about the good. When ethical values rise to the level of social/cultural importance, they become laws and not merely customs. But all laws and questions of justice are inherently ethical questions insofar as they inherently shape the contours of what any given community conceives of as the good. As Reinhold Niebuhr put it, “Politics will, to the end of history, be an area where conscience and power meet, where the ethical and the coercive factors of human life will interpenetrate and work out tentative and uneasy compromises” ( 2013 , p. 4). The relationships between ethics and power can be understood in terms of three dimensions—justice, normativity, and force.

Normativity is a form of power with wide-ranging ethical implications. Not only do social norms become a framework within which all forms of the good (and by extension, the bad) may be produced, they also invisibly become part of the interconnected embeddedness of the social that make subjectivity itself possible. Gender, for example, is a form of social normativity with far-ranging ethical implications. Not only do gender conventions govern nearly every conceivable variation of human interaction (from the professions to child raising), violations of gender norms are soundly punished, often violently. Similarly, because every binary includes a hierarchy, in the case of gender male standards are not only normative but unmarked as such even while they serve to set the standard of what is “good” in many situations. Thus evaluations of performance of many communicative actions such as oratory, argument, debate, writing, turn-taking, holding the floor, delivering instruction, and so forth, may appear to be gender neutral when in fact the very standards of quality and merit may be deeply embedded in normatively masculine gender conventions. Thus, because of its relation to ideology as a means of legitimating existing social relations and differences of power, status quo, and common sense, normativity can exert tremendous and often invisible power that inevitable engender ethical questions. Who dictates the terms of what is normative, correct, standard, common sense?

At the same time, however, normativity fuels the very machinery of everyday communicative action. Without predetermined conventions, such as those that govern traffic (street, commerce, or Internet), human interactions would be fraught with peril or even simply impossible. Similarly, what some consider to be the social contract—the implicit moral obligations we have by virtue of being part of society—make everyday life in the shared social world possible. But at the same time, norms and conventions by necessity make some things possible and others impossible. A good example of the role of normativity in ethical questions of power relates to the questions of national and world languages. Language plays a significant role in the production, maintenance, and change in relations of power. For example, although to many native English speakers the United States appears to be a monolinguistic society, the truth is quite the contrary. Some tens of millions of American speak more than 25 languages other than English (not including the more than 175 native American languages now spoken in the United States) with 17.5 million Spanish speakers (Schmid, 2001 ). The implications of exclusive usage and public acceptance of English-only policies and laws involve a constellation of ethical questions ranging from access to recognition (in terms of citizenship, voting, education, courts, medical care, etc.).

Similarly, there are enormous political and ethical implications of so-called world English wherein there are 1.5 billion English speakers in the world, where English is designated as an official language of 62 nations, and where English serves of the dominant language of science, academic publishing, and international organizations (Tsuda, 2008 ). From a global perspective, world English can serve as problem of linguistic hegemony, whereby English dominates as a form of linguistic imperialism with ethical consequences ranging from linguistic and communicative inequality, to discrimination, and colonization of the consciousness (Tsuda, 2008 ). Thus, issues of communicative competence are not ethically neutral but can in fact become political means of social stratification employing linguistic, discursive, and social norms. Because discourses are ways of displaying membership in particular social groups, communicative norms can also serve to include as well as exclude, to mark as insider or outsider, and as a means to regulate other forms of behavior. Other issues of normativity that touch on communication ethics therefore include belonging, civility, codes, community, common sense, conformity, consensus, identity, homogeneity, legitimation, locality, loyalty, mimesis, narrativity, political correctness, precepts, principals, propriety, prudence, ratification, representation, rules, standards, uniformity, unity, and universalism (Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009 ).

The area of justice provides yet another means by which power interrelates with communication ethics. Typically, justice revolves around questions of rights, fairness, due process, discrimination, equality, equity, impartiality, participation, privilege, recognition, sovereignty, and so forth. The American political philosopher John Rawls maintained that justice was equivalent to fairness, and he designed a thought experiment called the veil of ignorance as a means to determine principles of justice (as fairness) in a given community. Rawls’s veil was intended to conceal the social position of each participant in the deliberation of justice. In other words, people would deem principles of fairness without knowing where in society they would end up at the end of the day. In Rawls’s view, meritocracy cannot be just unless everyone begins at the same starting line with the same resources, experiences, endowments, etc. So what principles would those behind the veil choose? Rawls says we would choose equal basic liberties for everyone, with social and economic inequalities existing only if they worked to the advantage of the least well off members of society. To Rawls, the facts of inequitable distribution of economic or other success or failure are, to a large degree, outside of our control and thus neither just nor unjust . What is just and unjust is the way that public and political institutions deal with these facts. Some communication ethicists, however, have challenged these Rawlsian ideals of the capacity for neutral imagination (Couldry, Gray, & Gillespie, 2013 ; Munshi, Broadfoot, & Smith, 2011 ).

Explicit and overt questions of communication ethics often involve the values of justice. Ethical credos, honor codes, moral principles, and ethical guidelines often stipulate “right vs. wrong” scenarios as a means to get at the good. When questions of justice need to be arbitrated, deliberative methods that weigh first principles, outcomes, and precedent are often employed. But these themselves often beg the ethical question of who deliberates, under what conditions, and with what resources (Fraser, 1994 ; Habermas, 1989 ). A community dialogue meant to empower citizens largely disenfranchised from the halls of power must contend with questions of access, competence, and convention that underlie the very possibilities of deliberation. For example, when knowledge and communication skills leading to social power are made available to advantaged social groups but are withheld from less advantaged groups in society, a community “dialogue” can inadvertently become an instrument of injustice (Gastil, Lingle, & Deess, 2010 ; Jovanovic, 2012 ). Similarly, inequitable access to the resources of symbolic capital—the prestige, privilege, and education needed to constitute arguments—cannot be just if the allocation of those resources is unequal and available only to a few.

Questions of force are often directly related to justice in that they present manifestations of state and social power that can violently silence, repress, or simply rule “out of order” questions of justice. Force creates situations in which people are not able to speak for themselves, where those in power do not listen, and when the very language needed to articulate claims to justice is not understood. An example of the ethical dimensions of force can be seen in Scott’s ( 1990 ) idea of the “hidden transcript,” a form of hidden public discourse produced by and witnessed only by those without the power to set norms and the claims of justice. As Scott writes, even the most violent political oppression never completely silences the voices of the oppressed—the unspeakable is spoken clandestinely through discourse hidden from those in power: “Most of the political life of subordinate groups is to be found neither in overt collective defiance of power holders nor in complete hegemonic compliance, but in the vast territory between these two polar opposites” ( 1990 , p. 136). Similarly, Squires ( 2002 ) draws on this concept to examine how subordinated groups voice political resistance in disguise, hidden between the lines of the official or public transcript in a multiplicity of coded forms: “In the history of Black public spheres, the pressures of living in a racist society, the ongoing fight for equality, and the rich cultural reserves have necessitated” the use of hidden transcripts (Squires, 2002 , p. 457). Thus explicit force such as prohibitions of speaking and listening are met with implicit and explicit modes of force involving rumor, gossip, disguises, linguistic tricks, metaphors, euphemisms, folktales, and ritual gestures: “For good reason, nothing is entirely straightforward here; the realities of power for subordinate groups mean that much of their political action requires interpretation precisely because it is intended to be cryptic and opaque” (Scott, 1990 , p. 137).

Other forms of the power of force can be seen in the selective aggregation of “big data” by media and Internet conglomerates, or the everyday silencing, censorship, coercion, compulsion, confession, diagnosis, interrogation, negation, marginalization, repression, and prohibition that occur in workplaces, schools, governments, and other organizations where force overtly and covertly serves power (Fairfield & Shtein, 2014 ; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2013 ). But force also resists power in forms such as (re)appropriation, critique, extortion, framing, mobility, negation, networks, parrhesia, speaking truth to power, subversion, and even violence. For example, during the height of state violence in response to the American civil rights movement, a group of Quakers began pamphleteering, witnessing, and organizing in search for forceful responses to violence. In their 1955 pamphlet, “Speak truth to Power,” the Quakers wrote, “if ever truth reaches power, if ever it speaks to the individual citizen, it will not be the argument that convinces. Rather it will be his own inner sense of integrity that impels him to say, ‘Here I stand. Regardless of relevance or consequence, I can do no other’” (Rustin, 1955 , p. 68).

Relation: Alterity and Compassion

Another central thread of communication ethics is the idea of the relation as ontologically basic, meaning that no self can exist outside of the myriad relationships that make up the social matrix of communication. As Martin Buber wrote, “man did not exist before having a fellow being, before he lived over against him, toward him, and that means before he had dealings with him. Language never existed before address” ( 1998 , p. 105). The relational thread of communication ethics calls upon us to never lose sight of the radical alterity, or otherness, of the other. That is, we are asked to never mistake our understanding of the other for the other herself , never to impose our meaning and understanding upon him, never to attempt to absorb/assimilate/appropriate the other into ourselves. We are enjoined to avoid absorbing the other’s difference into my own same .

One of the central concerns of communication ethics pertains to our relation to others and, in particular, to the radical otherness , or alterity, of others. Postmodern and post-colonial literatures have clearly identified and lucidly critiqued the many ways in which political hegemons cast the other in the role of feared and threatening stranger where the other is depicted as without humanity or legitimacy, resulting in patterns of annihilation, oppression, and alienation or of appropriation, assimilation, and absorption. In contrast, the ethical relation to alterity approaches the other as welcomed—as “the stranger, the widow, the orphan” (Levinas, 1969 , p. 77). To Levinas, the other is a moral center to whom one owes everything, and the other must always come first, not last: “To recognize the Other is to recognize a hunger. To recognize the Other is to give. But it is to give to the master, to the lord, to him whom one approaches as ‘Vous’ in a dimension of height” ( 1969 , p. 75).

In writing about this second, ethical sense of alterity, Levinas observes how the other is always more than she appears: “The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me” ( 1969 , p. 51). The acknowledgment of alterity enables speakers to acknowledge, if not honor, radical differences in thought, belief, political and social location, communicative, symbolic and social capital, and so forth. Other aspects of alterity that arise in communication ethics involve relations of alienation, ambiguity, asymmetry, contradiction, cosmopolitanism, discord, diversity, incongruity, interruption, intersectionality, and ostracism (Arneson, 2014 ; Hyde, 2012 ; Pinchevski, 2005 ).

Thus, unlike a Habermasian discourse ethics of the ideal speech situation, where interlocutors are instructed to “bracket status differentials and deliberate as if they were social equals,” (Fraser, 1994 , p. 117), or a Rawlsian theory of justice, which asks interlocutors to deliberate behind a “veil of ignorance,” alterity deliberately invites and acknowledges difference, acknowledging that each of us arrive “on the scene” of communication with different histories, traditions, values, and experiences. The acknowledgment of alterity gives rise to a sense of ethical responsibility—the ability to respond to the other—which leads to compassion. To Buber, therefore, “Genuine responsibility exists only when there is real responding” ( 1975 , p. 16). Ethical compassion arises not because one identifies with the others’ suffering but because one recognizes the other’s alterity, and therefore, her suffering. As Noddings writes, “I do not ‘put myself in the other's shoes,’ so to speak, by analyzing his reality as objective data and then asking, ‘How would I feel in such a situation?’ On the contrary, I set aside my temptation to analyze and plan. I do not project; I receive the other into myself, and I see and feel with the other” ( 1984 , p. 30).

Noddings illustrates the idea of empathic engrossment as our response to an infant crying. We know something is wrong, and the infant’s feeling becomes ours. This is not a problem-solving state, but a feeling-with state. Thus ethical compassion is not vulnerable to ideological ideas about worthy and unworthy suffering but simply feels with the other because she is suffering. Therefore, relational compassion is open to transformation of the self wherein “we are not attempting to transform the world, but we are allowing ourselves to be transformed” (Noddings, 1984 , p. 34). The relational dimension of communication ethics are also important in feminist care-based ethics, focusing less on the rights of individuals and more upon caring responsibilities in relationships (Tronto, 1993 ). Other dimensions of compassion that arise in communication ethics involve acknowledgment, advocacy, affirmation, amnesty, atonement, attunement, embodiment, forgiveness, generosity, gratitude, humility, kindness, leisure, precarity, reconciliation, and sharing (Arnett, 2013 ; Holba, 2014 ).

Discussion of the Literature: Five Modes of Ethical Reasoning

As a branch of philosophy, ethics concerns questions about what makes some actions right and some wrong in a given context. Throughout history all cultures have developed particular doctrines or philosophies of the good, many of which are classified in the West along four primary lines: virtue ethics , which locate the good in the virtuous character and qualities of actions or individuals; deontological ethics , which locate the good in an act or an individual’s adherence to duties or principles; teleological ethics , which locate the good in the consequences of actions and choices; and dialogic ethics , which locate the good in the relations between persons. During the 20th century , postmodern ethics has called these prior ethical theories into question by challenging not merely the value of rules, procedures, systems, and fixed categories for understanding or theorizing ethics, but the humanist ideas of persons as autonomous agents who can act independently as ethical agents. Below are described five such modes of ethical reasoning.

Most commonly associated with the 5th-century bce Greek philosopher Aristotle, virtue ethics focus on the choice, cultivation, and enactment of “virtuous” qualities, such as courage, temperance, truthfulness, and justice, in both the individual and in civic life. In his foundational Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle ( 1998 ) describes how virtue is an expression of character in which we become temperate by doing temperate acts. In the Aristotelian sense, then, ethics are a human activity rather than a creed, principle, or goal. Most religious traditions articulate a number of overlapping virtues, many of which derive in turn from even earlier traditions and cultures. For example, the so-called cardinal virtues of 12th-century Roman Christianity emphasize courage, prudence, temperance, and justice; these were derived from the earlier Greek philosophies of Plato and Aristotle that in turn derive from far earlier Egyptian wisdom literature (ca. 3000 bce ). Similarly, the 5th-century bce Paramitas of Indian Buddhism stress generosity, patience, honesty, and compassion and are derived in part from virtues articulated in Hindu scriptures that originated around 1000 bce . Further east in 5th-century bce China, both Confusianism and Taoism identified virtues such as empathy, reciprocity, and harmony for the cultivation of an ethical personal and civic life. Even the 18th-century American political virtues of Jeffersonian democracy (inscribed in the Declaration of Independence as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) derive in part from the Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia , the happiness caused by living a virtuous life. Outside of religious traditions, contemporary Euro-American theorists of ethical virtue, sometimes called neo-Aristotelians, locate virtue variously, for example, in the enactment of intentions and motives (Phillipa Foot, Michael Slote), in practical action or phronesis (Alasdair MacIntyre), and in the civic value of emotions, especially compassion (Martha Nussbaum).

Deontological ethics (derived from the Greek word for duty ) are most commonly associated with the 18th-century Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant, who constructed a theory of moral reasoning based not on virtues, outcomes, or emotions but on duties and obligations. In his book Foundations for a Metaphysics of Morals , Kant proposes that ethics are based on a universal law that he calls the categorical imperative . Sometimes mistakenly confused with the golden rule (i.e., do unto others as you would have them do unto you ), the categorical imperative holds that a person should only act on the principles that she or he would want everyone else to always act upon. Kant’s universal law is categorical because there are absolutely no exceptions under any conditions, and it is imperative because it is a necessary duty to which everyone must adhere. But the imperative is dictated not by goods in and of themselves, but by logical reasoning. For example, Kant argues that the ethical prohibition against lying is a categorical imperative because if lying were universalized, no one would believe lies, which depend for themselves on public trust. Bok’s work on lying builds upon this logical contradiction inherent in lying. Similarly, the second formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative—which states that we should never treat people as means to our ends, but always as ends in and of themselves—is readily understood as a universalizable, prohibitive law. Other deontological ethical theories include religious and monastic approaches (such as adhering to divine commands, doctrinal principles, and the fulfillment of monastic vows) and social-contract theories based on the philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jeans-Jacques Rousseau. In contemporary Euro-American contexts, deontologists, also called neo-Kantians, have developed rights-based approaches (e.g., John Rawls’s theory of justice ), discourse-based approaches (e.g., Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics ), and contract-based approaches (e.g., Thomas Scanlon’s contractualism ). Significantly for communication, both Habermas’s and Rawls’s theories center on processes of communication from which ethical norms and principles are derived. For example, Habermas’s discourse ethics prescribes the development and acceptance of rationally grounded validity claims and nontranscendable norms that are produced in democratic argumentation, whereas Rawls’s theory of justice relies upon the discursive achievement of overlapping consensus and public reason . Both approaches have been critiqued on a number of grounds from differing theoretical perspectives, including feminist, postmodernist, Marxist, communitarian, libertarian, and noncognitivist. For example, Chantal Mouffe critiques both Habermas’s and Rawls’s theories because they rely upon idealized, conceptually impossible, and hyper-rational models of deliberative democracy.

Sometimes considered the foil of deontological ethics, teleologica l (from the Greek word for goal ) ethical theories (also known as consequentialist ) exercise moral judgments based on the outcomes and consequences of actions rather than on principles, duties, or virtues. Among the most common ethical theories are utilitarianism and ethical egoism . Utilitarianism, associated with the 18th-century British philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, theorizes that we are ethically bound to do what is best for the most people. According to Mill, for example, actions are good when they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number . In the contemporary Euro-American context, consequentialist theorists include Peter Singer, who extends utilitarianism to include the good of animals and other beings on the planet; Shelly Kagan, who defends consequentialism from critiques by contemporary deontological ethicists; and Amartya Sen, who applies utilitarian ethics to economics, democracy, and public health. Another form of teleological ethics— ethical egoism (which is sometimes called rational self-interest theory)—theorizes that all ethical actions are ultimately self-serving, even those that appear to be self-sacrificing. Some contemporary theorists argue an ethical egoist position from a psychological point of view that stresses the emotional and social benefits of ethical actions to self, whereas others argue ethical egoism from an evolutionary point of view that stresses the genetic and biological benefits to self. Still others argue ethical egoism from a rational point of view, positing that both individuals and society benefit when each individual benefits. Teleological ethics have been critiqued on a number of grounds from a number of perspectives, especially the deontological and virtue-based approaches. Martha Nussbaum, for example, argues that consequentialist reasoning all too easily leads to a kind of heartless cost-benefit calculation that excludes the full expanses of the ethical.

Associated largely with late 20th-century Euro-American philosophers, such as Zygmunt Bauman, Joseph Caputo, and Michel Foucault, but also with feminist ethicists such as Carol Gilligan, Joan Tronto, and Nel Noddings, postmodern ethicists critique so-called modernist and enlightenment ethical philosophies such as virtue, deontological, and teleological ethics. Rather than conceptualizing human beings as free, autonomous, independent, and rational agents, as do the modernist theorists, postmodernists view human beings as inter-related, interdependent, contradictory, emotional, and, occasionally at least, irrational social beings. Drawing in part on the 19th-century philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, who crafted a brilliant challenge to traditional religion, philosophy, and morality, postmodern ethicists further reject modernist ideals of certainty, universalism, and essentialism, as well as rules, codifications, and systems. In place of ethical rules or precepts, for example, Zygmunt Bauman posits the idea of moral responsibility in which each person must stretch out towards others in pursuit of the good in all situations, even, or perhaps most especially, when what is the good is most uncertain. Thus, Bauman cautions against certainty, calculation, and precept, arguing that reason alone is an insufficient basis for ethical action. Similarly, feminist ethicists from a range of perspectives, such as Annette Baier’s virtue-oriented ethics to Chantal Mouffe’s Marxist-oriented ethics, critique deontological perspectives such as Rawls’s idea of the priority of the right over the good because it categorically privileges individualistic and abstract rights over collective goods and values. From a somewhat different postmodern perspective, Michel Foucault posits ethics as caring for the self through what he calls a practice of freedom . Joseph Caputo, in contrast, argues against ethics itself and in its place posits the affirmation of the other, the singularity of each ethical situation, and the centrality of the unqualified, unconditional gift that requires precisely those things that are not required.

Rather than theorizing an ethics based in individual character, duty, outcome, or interest, dialogic ethics locates the ethical in the intersubjective sphere of communicative relationships between and among persons. The issues of response and responsibility are woven into the center of dialogic ethics. Associated largely with the work of two 20th-century Jewish European philosophers, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, dialogic ethics posits ethics as first philosophy wherein the ethical relation with the other, rather than the ontology of the self, is understood to be foundational to human experience. To Buber, the person becomes a person by saying Thou and thereby entering into relation with other persons. The Thou , in Buber’s understanding, is not a monadic subjectivity but a relation of intersubjectivity , or development of mutual meaning, that arises from people cohabiting communication exchanges in which understanding arises from what happens in between the subjectivity of persons. To Levinas, one’s personal subjectivity can only arise through one’s own responsibility to the other , who is utterly different from oneself and to whom one owes everything. Dialogic ethics thus requires a healthy respect for the irreducible alerity , or otherness, of persons with whom one has dialogue, wherein the self never mistakes its own understanding of the other for the other herself. In the context of communication studies, dialogic ethics has generated a rich body of research by contemporary scholars such as Kenneth Anderson, Ronald Arnett, Rob Cissna, Michael Hyde, and Jeffrey Murray, wherein the ultimate issues in communication ethics pertain not so much to words themselves but rather to the ethical realm in which communication is constitutive of persons, cultures, publics, and relationships. For example, to Cissna and Anderson, dialogic ethics involve an awakening of other-awareness that occurs in and through a moment of meeting.

In the field of communication, ethicists make use of all of the above theories in approaching questions of ethics in interpersonal, intercultural, mediated, institutional, organizational, rhetorical, political, and public communication contexts. Clifford Christians and Michael Traber, for example, take a deontological approach in searching for ethical universals and protonorms across cultures. In contrast, Josina Makau and Ronald Arnett take a more dialogic approach in a volume on communication ethics and diversity. In contrast, Fred Casmir takes a multi-perspectival approach to intercultural and international communication ethics. More recently, Michael Hyde has drawn on the dialogic ethics of Emmanuel Levinas to explore ethical rhetorical action in personal and public life, and Sharon Bracci and Clifford Christians have brought a wide range of ethical perspectives to bear on a range of communication questions.

In the classroom, communication ethicists emphasize the importance of cultivating attunement to silences, erasures, and misrecognitions that occur when one voice speaks in place of another or when another is silenced. By asking questions such as who speaks, who is heard, or whose voice is rendered unintelligible, students are encouraged to more fully recognize both tacit and overt ethical questions in all manner of communicative interactions. While most communication ethics textbooks tend to include some combination of theory, disciplinary context, and applied context, each tends to principally emphasize one or two of these areas. Some communication ethics textbooks are organized principally around modes of moral reasoning, while others address ethics as it is understood in different areas of the field. Some textbooks are embedded in specific applied contexts such as the workplace or the media, and some attempt to combine theory, disciplinary context, and value.

Addendum: Some Key Themes of Communication Ethics

Websites/other information.

Communication Ethics Division of NCA: http://commethics.org/news/

Institute of Communication Ethics: http://www.communicationethics.net/sales/index.php?nav=book .

Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory: http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/

How to Illustrate Ethics in a Presentation [concept visualization]

Last Updated on September 7, 2020 by infodiagram

Understanding and following the ethics concept in communication is a way to successful business relations. Ethics concept comes in many forms – from how you choose projects to how you work with clients. Here we want to introduce the illustrations of ethics concepts that help you get creative in your presentations.

If you want to make your slides look professional, we advise you to follow one style and incorporate relevant graphics to support your presentation. The challenge is how to simplify your concept PPT, but to keep the audience inspired and involved. Here we share some hints for illustrating ethics concept ideas.

Expressing the ethics concept ideas with outline simple style

Ethnics concept icons symbols outline for PowerPoint

Above we suggest several icon examples from our outline icons collection. Use them to make your presentation more visual. Here’s an index of ethnics concept ideas:

pictograms describing customer care and teamwork values
h uman head icon full of emotions
interpersonal communication as a key to business ethic: idea change symbol , or persuasion process
weighing scale as a main ethnic principal
ethical communication icon of groups of people
graphics of ethical feelings as love , care
general ethical business principal metaphors: male leader figure , compass

Design-neutral ethics concept graphics

Ethnics concept icons symbols design-neutral flat for PowerPoint

Flat style icons will suit any presentation slide. You can change colors to suit your brand style. Here’s how you can illustrate the ethnics concept using flat symbols:

hammer symbol highlighting law principles
basic principles of ethical communication: interpersonal negotiation and idea changing icons
work ethics icon showing team job
feelings as one of the most important resources for guiding ethical conduct – trust , love and admiration icons
business ethical development stages – growing plant metaphor
protection shield icon showing the basic ethical principle

Creative unique hand drawn ethics icons collection

Ethnics concept icons symbols scribble for PowerPoint

If you want to be more creative and personal, use hand-drawn symbols for showing the ethics principles. See the specific visual ideas below:

justice and ethics in the contemporary world: layer icon , law hammer , and justice scale
professional activities icons: male figure during reading
male figure expressing emotions
global business ethics shaped with the compass

I hope you will find some inspiration from those icon ideas to express the Ethics concept. What’s your biggest presentation challenge? Let us know in the comments and we’ll be happy to share our quick design advice.

If you like the suggested icons, you can get them from infoDiagram library. The best way to get them is by joining subscription access to PPT graphics here . It will allow you to download these symbols, and graphics from any presentation deck you find on the website.

More concept icons ideas

Need to show another concept in a presentation? Leadership, Urgency, Status, Growth you name it. See our blog Ultimate List of Business Concepts Visualization to get inspired.

3 Understanding the Ethics of Public Speaking

Learning objectives.

Explain how to use the three levels of the ethics to evaluate the ethical choices of a public speaker or listener.
Understand how to apply the National Communication Association (NCA) Credo for Ethical Communication within the context of public speaking.
Understand how you can apply ethics to your public speaking preparation process.

Is it ever appropriate to lie to a group of people if it’s in the group’s best interest? As a speaker, should you use evidence within a speech that you are not sure is correct if it supports the speech’s core argument? As a listener, should you refuse to listen to a speaker with whom you fundamentally disagree? These three examples represent ethical choices speakers and listeners face in the public speaking context. In this chapter, we will explore what it means to be both an ethical speaker and an ethical listener. To help you understand the issues involved with thinking about ethics, this chapter begins by presenting a model for ethical communication known as the ethics pyramid. We will then demonstrate how to apply the National Communication Association (NCA) Credo for Ethical Communication to public speaking. The chapter will conclude with a general discussion of free speech.

The Ethics Pyramid

The word “ethics” can mean different things to different people. Whether it is an ethical lapse in a business plan or a disagreement about medical treatment in end-of-life choices, people come into contact with ethical dilemmas regularly. Speakers and listeners of public speech face numerous ethical dilemmas as well. What kinds of support material and sources are ethical to use? How much should a speaker adapt to an audience without sacrificing their views? What makes a speech ethical?

Figure 1: Ethical Pyramid

An Ethical Pyramid: Ends, Means, and Intent

Elspeth Tilley, a public communication ethics expert from Massey University, proposes a structured approach to thinking about ethics (Tilley, 2005). Her ethics pyramid involves three basic concepts: intent, means, and ends. Figure 1 “Ethical Pyramid” illustrates the Tilley pyramid.

According to Tilley, the first significant consideration to be aware of when examining the ethicality of something is the issue of intent . To be ethical, a speaker or a listener must begin with ethical intentions. For example, if we agree that honesty is ethical, it follows that ethical speakers will prepare their remarks with the intention of telling the truth to their audiences. Similarly, if we agree that it is ethical to listen with an open mind, it follows that ethical listeners will be intentional about letting a speaker make his or her case before forming judgments.

One option for assessing intent is to talk with others about how ethical they think a specific behavior is; if you get a variety of answers, it might be a sign that the behavior is not ethical and should be avoided. A second option is to check out existing codes of ethics. Many professional organizations, including the Independent Computer Consultants Association, the American Counseling Association, and the American Society of Home Inspectors, have codes of conduct or ethical guidelines for their members. Individual corporations such as Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Intel, and ConocoPhillips also have ethical guidelines for how their employees should interact with suppliers or clients. Even when specific ethical codes are not present, you can apply general ethical principles. Think about two questions: Is this behavior beneficial for the majority of my listeners? Or, would I approve of the same behavior suggested by a speaker if you were listening to a speech instead of giving it?

Additionally, it is essential to be aware that people can engage in unethical behavior unintentionally. For example, suppose we agree that it is unethical to take someone else’s words and pass them off as your own—a practice known as plagiarism. What happens if a speaker makes a statement that she believes was her own thought? What if she makes a statement that was actually quoted from a radio commentator whom she heard without clearly remembering? The plagiarism was unintentional, but does that make it ethical?

Intent is when the speaker plans to make ethical choices.

Tilley describes the means you use to communicate with others as the second level of the ethics pyramid. According to McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond (McCroskey, Wrench, & Richmond, 2003), means are the tools or behaviors we employ to achieve a desired outcome. We must realize that there are a range of possible behavioral choices for any situation and that some choices are good, some are bad, and some fall in the middle.

For example, suppose you want your friend Ahmad to spend an hour reviewing a draft of your speech before your speech day. What means might you use to persuade Ahmad to do you this favor? You might explain that you value Ahmad’s opinion and will gladly return the favor the next time Ahmad is preparing a speech (good means); or, you might threaten to tell a professor that Ahmad cheated on a test (bad means). While both of these means may lead to the same end—having Ahmad agree to review your speech—one is clearly more ethical than the other.

The means are the tools or behaviors we employ to achieve a desired outcome.

The final part of the ethics pyramid is the ends. According to McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond (McCroskey, Wrench, & Richmond, 2003), ends are those outcomes that you desire to achieve. Examples of ends might include persuading your audience to make a financial contribution for your participation in Relay for Life, persuading a group of homeowners that your real estate agency would best meet their needs, or informing your fellow students about newly required university fees. Whereas the means are the behavioral choices we make, the ends are the results of those choices.

Like intentions and means, ends can be good or bad, or they can fall into a gray area where it is unclear just how ethical or unethical they are. For example, suppose a city council wants to balance the city’s annual budget. Balancing the budget may be a good end, assuming that the city has adequate tax revenues and areas of discretionary spending for non-essential services for the year in question. However, voters might argue that balancing the budget is a bad end if the city lacks these things for the year in question because in that case, balancing the budget would require raising taxes, curtailing essential city services, or both.

When examining ends, we need to think about both the source and the receiver of the message or behavior. Some end results could be good for the source but bad for the receiver, or vice versa. Suppose, for example, that Anita belongs to a club that is raffling off a course of dancing lessons. Anita sells Ben a ten-dollar raffle ticket. However, Ben later thinks it over and realizes that he has no desire to take dancing lessons and that if he should win the raffle, he will never take the lessons. Anita’s club has gained ten dollars—a good end—but Ben has lost ten dollars—a bad end. Again, the ethical standards you and your audience expect will help in deciding whether a particular combination of speaker and audience ends is ethical.

The ends are the outcomes you desire to achieve.

Thinking through the Pyramid

Ultimately, understanding ethics is a matter of balancing all three parts of the ethical pyramid: intent, means, and ends. When thinking about the ethics of a given behavior, Tilley recommends asking yourself three basic questions:

“Have I discussed the ethicality of the behavior with others and come to a general consensus that the behavior is ethical?”
“Does the behavior adhere to known codes of ethics?”
“Would I be happy if the outcomes of the behavior were reversed and applied to me?” (Tilley, 2005)

You do not need to ask yourself these three questions before enacting every behavior as you go through a day. However, they do provide a useful framework for thinking through a behavior when you are not sure whether a given action, or statement, may be unethical. Ultimately, understanding ethics is a matter of balancing all three parts of the ethical pyramid: intent, means, and ends.

Ethics in Public Speaking

The study of ethics in human communication is hardly a recent endeavor. The Greek philosopher, Plato, conducted one of the earliest discussions of ethics in communication (and particularly in public speaking) in his dialogue Phaedrus . In the centuries since Plato’s time, an entire subfield within the discipline of human communication has developed to explain and understand communication ethics.

Communication Code of Ethics

In 1999, the National Communication Association, NCA, officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication. The organization updated the credo in 2017. Ultimately, the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication.

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.
We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and society.
We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.
We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

Source: http://www.natcom.org/Default.aspx?id=134&terms=Credo

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

Carmella Fernando – Promise? – CC BY 2.0.

The second part of information honesty is to disclose where we obtain the information in our speeches thoroughly. As ethical speakers, it is vital to always cite your sources of information within the body of a speech. Whether you conducted an interview or read a newspaper article, you must tell your listeners the source of your information. We mentioned earlier in this chapter that using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism . The word “plagiarism” stems from the Latin word plagiaries , or kidnapper. The American Psychological Association states in its publication manual that ethical speakers do not claim “words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due” (American Psychological Association, 2001).

Plagiarism is using someone else’s words or ideas without giving them credit.

In the previous sentence, we placed quotation marks around the phrase that came from the American Psychological Association and not from us. When speaking informally, people sometimes use “air quotes” to signal direct quotations, but this is not a recommended technique in public speaking. Instead, speakers need to verbally tell an audience when they are using someone else’s information. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When former Vice President Joseph Biden was running for president of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that the university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result.

Even if you are not running for president of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is necessary. Many universities have policies that include dismissal from the institution for student plagiarism of academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lower credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing grade on your assignment or expulsion from your school. While we will talk in more detail about plagiarism later in this book, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of giving credit to the speakers and authors whose ideas we pass on within our own speeches and writing.

Speakers tend to fall into one of three significant traps with plagiarism. The first trap is failing to tell the audience the source of a direct quotation. In the previous paragraph, we used a direct quotation from the American Psychological Association. If we had not used the quotation marks and clearly listed where the cited material came from, you, as a reader, wouldn’t have known the source of that information. To avoid plagiarism, you always need to tell your audience when you are directly quoting information within a speech.

The second plagiarism trap public speakers fall into is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech, you talk about those three types of schoolyard bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing. Typically, the only information you do not need to cite is information that is general knowledge. General knowledge is information that is publicly available and widely known by a large segment of society. For example, you would not need to provide a citation within a speech for the name of Delaware’s capitol. Although many people do not know the capitol of Delaware without looking it up, this information is publicly available and easily accessible, so assigning credit to one specific source is not useful or necessary.

The main character on the hit Fox television show House , Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, “It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what” (Shore & Barclay, 2005). This notion that “everybody lies” is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead (1975), the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as “completely honest.”

In this example, we see that the authors of this paragraph cited information from two external sources: Shore and Barclay and Tummer, Edgley, and Olmstead. Both groups of authors are given credit for their ideas. The authors make it clear that they did not produce the television show House or conduct the study that found that only 38.5 percent of statements were completely honest. Instead, these authors cited information found in two other locations. This type of citation is appropriate.

There are two main reasons we do this. First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information.

The second reason we do not re-cite someone else’s sources within our speeches is that it’s intellectually dishonest. You owe your listeners an honest description of where the facts you are relating came from, not just the name of an author who cited those facts. It is more work to trace the original source of a fact or statistic; but by doing the extra work, you can avoid this plagiarism trap.

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

If everyone only listened to one source of information, then we would be easily manipulated and controlled. For this reason, we believe that individuals should be willing to listen to a range of speakers on a given subject. As listeners or consumers of communication, we should realize that this diversity of perspectives enables us to be more fully informed on a topic. Imagine voting in an election after listening only to the campaign speeches of one candidate. The audience’s perspective of that candidate would be so narrow that you would have no way to accurately understand and assess the issues at hand or the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing candidates. Unfortunately, some voters do limit themselves to listening only to their candidate of choice. As a result, they base their voting decisions on incomplete and, not infrequently, inaccurate information.

Ultimately, honoring free speech and seeking out a variety of perspectives is very important for all listeners. We will discuss this idea further in the chapter on listening.

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

This ethical characteristic is specifically directed at receivers of a message. As listeners, we often let our perceptions of a speaker’s nonverbal behavior, their appearance, posture, mannerisms, eye contact, and so on, determine our opinions about a message before the speaker has said a word. We may also find ourselves judging a speaker based on information we have heard about him or her from other people. Perhaps you have heard from other students that a particular teacher is very entertaining when lecturing in class. Even though you do not have personal knowledge, you may prejudge the teacher and their message based on information others have given you. The NCA credo reminds us that to be ethical listeners, we need to avoid such judgments and instead make an effort to listen respectfully; only when we have understood a speaker’s viewpoint are we ready to begin forming our opinions of the message.

Listeners should try to objectively analyze the content and arguments within a speech before deciding how to respond. When we disagree with a speaker, we might find it difficult to listen to the content of the speech. Instead, we might work on creating a rebuttal the entire time the speaker is talking. If we work on a rebutal, we do not strive to understand and do not respect the speaker.

Of course, this does not just affect the listener in the public speaking situation. As speakers, we are often called upon to evaluate and refute possible arguments against our positions. While we always want our speeches to be as persuasive as possible, we do ourselves and our audiences a disservice when we downplay, distort, or refuse to mention important arguments from the opposing side. Impartially researching and evaluating counterarguments is an essential ethical obligation for the public speaker.

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Individuals, Families, Communities, and Society

Human communication is a skill that can, and should, be taught. We firmly believe that you can become a better, more ethical speaker. One of the reasons the authors of this book teach courses in public speaking is that we, as communication professionals, have an ethical obligation to provide others, including students like you, with resources and opportunities to become better speakers.

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

Speakers need to take a two-pronged approach when addressing any audience: caring about the audience and understanding the audience. When you, as a speaker, genuinely care about your audience’s needs and desires, you avoid setting up a manipulative climate. Your audience will not always perceive their own needs and wants in the same way you do. However, if you make an honest effort to speak to your audience in a way that has their best interests at heart, you are more likely to create persuasive arguments that are not just manipulative appeals.

To create a climate of caring and mutual respect, speakers need to be open with our audiences so that our intentions and perceptions are clear. Nothing alienates an audience faster than a speaker with a hidden agenda unrelated to the stated purpose of the speech. One of our coauthors once listened to a speaker give a two-hour talk, allegedly about workplace wellness, which turned out to be an infomercial for the speaker’s weight-loss program. In this case, the speaker had a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda, which made the audience feel disrespected.

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning. Unfortunately, some speakers take information and uses it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information. One place we see distortion frequently is in the political context, where politicians cite data and either completely alters the information or use it deceptively. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center ( http://www.factcheck.org ), and the St. Petersburg Times’s Politifact ( http://www.politifact.com ) are nonpartisan organizations devoted to analyzing political messages and demonstrating how information has been distorted.

Speakers should avoid expressions of intolerance and hatred such as using ageist, heterosexist, racist, sexist, and any other form of speech that demeans or belittles a group of people. Hate speech from all sides of the political spectrum in our society is detrimental to ethical communication. As such, we as speakers should be acutely aware of how an audience may perceive words that could be considered bigoted. For example, suppose a school board official involved in budget negotiations used the word “shekels” to refer to money, which he believes the teachers’ union should be willing to give up (Associated Press, 2011). The remark would be likely to prompt accusations of anti-Semitism and to distract listeners from any constructive suggestions the official might have for resolving budget issues. Although the official might insist that he meant no offense, he damaged the ethical climate of the budget debate by using a word associated with bigotry.

Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information and uses it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information.

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We believe that finding and bringing to light situations of inequality and injustice within our society is vital. Public speaking has been used throughout history to point out inequality, bias, and injustice. From Sojourner Truth describing the evils of slavery to Army Lt. Dan Choi’s speeches arguing that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy,” speeches have long been used to point out injustice. Many social justice movements have started because young public speakers have decided to stand up for what they believe is fair and just.

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

This ethical principle involves balancing personal disclosure with discretion. It is perfectly normal for speakers to want to share their personal opinions and feelings about a topic. If you choose to represent your thoughts and feelings in your speech, it is necessary to highlight the information is from your own perspective. Your listeners have a right to know the difference between facts and personal opinions.

Similarly, we must respect others’ privacy and confidentiality when speaking. If you obtain the information from a printed or publicly distributed material, it’s entirely appropriate to use that information without getting permission, as long as you cite it. However, when you have a great anecdote one of your friends told you in confidence or access to information that is not available to the general public, it is best to seek permission before using the information in a speech.

This ethical obligation even has legal implications in many government and corporate contexts. For example, individuals who work for the Central Intelligence Agency are legally precluded from discussing their work in public without prior review by the agency. And, companies, such as Google, also have policies requiring employees to seek permission before engaging in public speaking in which sensitive information might be leaked.

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

The last statement of NCA’s ethical credo may be the most important one. We live in a society where a speaker’s message can be heard around the world in a matter of minutes, thanks to our global communication networks. Extreme remarks made by politicians, media commentators, and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, can unexpectedly “go viral” with regrettable consequences. It is not unusual to see situations where a speaker talks hatefully about a specific group, but when one of the speaker’s listeners violently attacks a member of the group, the speaker insists that they had no way of knowing that this could have happened. Washing one’s hands of responsibility is unacceptable: all speakers should accept responsibility for the short and long-term consequences of their speeches. Although it is certainly not always the speaker’s fault if someone commits an act of violence, the speaker should take responsibility for their role in the situation. This process involves being genuinely reflective and willing to examine how one’s speech could have tragic consequences.

Furthermore, attempting to persuade a group of people to take any action means you should make sure that you understand the consequences of that action. Whether you are convincing people to vote for a political candidate or just encouraging them to lose weight, you should consider the potential short and long-term consequences of that decision. While our predictions of short and long-term consequences may not always be right, we have an ethical duty to at least think through the possible effects of our speeches and the actions we encourage.

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

In this section, we’ve introduced you to the basics of thinking through the ethics of public speaking. Knowing about ethics is essential, but even more important to being an ethical public speaker is putting that knowledge into practice. We should begin by thinking through possible ethical pitfalls prior to standing up and speaking out. Table 1 “Public Speaking Ethics Checklist” is a checklist based on our discussion in this chapter to help you think through some of these issues.

Table 1 Public Speaking Ethics Checklist

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author, p. 349.

Associated Press. (2011, May 5). Conn. shekel shellacking. New York Post .

Freedom of speech. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster’s dictionary of law . Retrieved from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom%20of%20speech

McCroskey, J. C., Wrench, J. S., & Richmond, V. P. (2003). Principles of public speaking . Indianapolis, IN: The College Network.

National Archives and Records Administration. (2011). Bill of rights transcription. Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

Shiffrin, S. H. (1999). Dissent, injustice and the meanings of America . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Supreme Court of the United States. (2007). Syllabus: Morse et al. v. Frederick. No. 06–278. Argued March 19, 2007–Decided June 25, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-278.pdf

Tilley, E. (2005). The ethics pyramid: Making ethics unavoidable in the public relations process. Journal of Mass Media Ethics , 20 , 305–320.

Stand up, Speak out Copyright © 2017 by Josh Miller; Marnie Lawler-Mcdonough; Megan Orcholski; Kristin Woodward; Lisa Roth; and Emily Mueller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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5.2 Ethics in Public Speaking

Communication Code of Ethics

In 1999, the National Communication Association officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication (see the text box). Ultimately, the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication.

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

Questions of right and wrong arise whenever people communicate. Ethical communication is fundamental to responsible thinking, decision-making, and the development of relationships and communities within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media. Moreover, ethical communication enhances human worth and dignity by fostering truthfulness, fairness, responsibility, personal integrity, and respect for self and others. We believe that unethical communication threatens the quality of all communication and consequently the well-being of individuals and the society in which we live. Therefore we, the members of the National Communication Association, endorse and are committed to practicing the following principles of ethical communication:

We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision-making fundamental to a civil society.
We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and society.
We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
We are committed to the courageous expression of personal in pursuit of fairness and justice.
We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
We accept responsibility for the short‐ and long‐term consequences for our own communication and expect the same of others.

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

It is also important to be honest about where all your information comes from in a speech. As speakers, examine your information sources and determine whether they are biased or have hidden agendas. For example, you are not likely to get accurate information about nonwhite individuals from a neo-Nazi website. While you may not know all your sources of information firsthand, you should attempt to find objective sources that do not have an overt or covert agenda that skews the argument you are making. The second part of information honesty is to fully disclose where we obtain the information in our speeches. As ethical speakers, it is important to always cite your sources of information within the body of a speech. Whether you conducted an interview or read a newspaper article, you must tell your listeners where the information came from. Using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism . The word “plagiarism” stems from the Latin word plagiaries , or kidnapper. American Psychological Association states in its publication manual that ethical speakers do not claim “words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due” (American Psychological Association, 2001). In the previous sentence, we placed quotation marks around the sentence to indicate that the words came from the American Psychological Association and not from us. When speaking informally, people sometimes use “air quotes” to signal direct quotations—but this is not a recommended technique in public speaking. Instead, speakers need to verbally tell an audience when they are using someone else’s information. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When President Joseph Biden was a Senator running for President of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that the university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result.

Even if you are not running for President of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is important to you as a student. Many universities and high schools have policies that include dismissal from the institution for student plagiarism of academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lower credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing grade on your assignment or expulsion from your school. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of giving credit to the speakers and authors whose ideas we pass on within our own speeches and writing.

The second plagiarism trap public speakers fall into is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech, you talk about those three types of schoolyard bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing. Typically, the only information you do not need to cite is information that is general knowledge. General knowledge is information that is publicly available and widely known by a large segment of society. For example, you would not need to provide a citation within a speech for the name of Delaware’s capital. Although many people do not know the capital of Delaware without looking it up, this information is publicly available and easily accessible, so assigning credit to one specific source is not useful or necessary.

The main character on the hit Fox television show House , Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, “It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what” (Shore & Barclay, 2005). This notion that “everybody lies” is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead (1975), the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as “completely honest.”

There are two main reasons we examine and cite the original source. First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information.

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision-Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

Listening to diverse perspectives includes being willing to hear dissenting voices. Dissent is by nature uncomfortable, as it entails expressing opposition to authority or the majority position, often in very unflattering terms. Legal scholar Steven H. Shiffrin has argued in favor of some symbolic speech (e.g., flag burning) because we as a society value the ability of anyone to express their dissent against the will and ideas of the majority (Shiffrin, 1999). Ethical communicators will be receptive to dissent, no matter how strongly they may disagree with the speaker’s message because they realize that a society that forbids dissent cannot function democratically. Ultimately, honoring free speech and seeking out a variety of perspectives is very important for all listeners.

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

Second, it is important for a speaker to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding. To do this, you should first learn as much as possible about your audience, a process called audience analysis.

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning. Unfortunately, some speakers take information and use it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information. One place we see distortion frequently is in the political context, where politicians cite a statistic or the results of a study and either completely alter the information or use it in a deceptive manner. FactCheck.org , a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and the St. Petersburg Times’s Politifact are nonpartisan organizations devoted to analyzing political messages and demonstrating how information has been distorted.

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We believe that finding and bringing to light situations of inequality and injustice within our society is important. Public speaking has been used throughout history to point out inequality and injustice, from Patrick Henry arguing against the way the English government treated the American colonists and Sojourner Truth describing the evils of slavery to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Army Lt. Dan Choi’s speeches arguing that the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unjust. Many social justice movements have started because young public speakers have decided to stand up for what they believe is fair and just.

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

The last statement of NCA’s ethical credo may be the most important one. We live in a society where a speaker’s message can literally be heard around the world in a matter of minutes, thanks to our global communication networks. Extreme remarks made by politicians, media commentators, and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, can unexpectedly “go viral” with regrettable consequences. It is not unusual to see situations where a speaker talks hatefully about a specific group, but when one of the speaker’s listeners violently attacks a member of the group, the speaker insists that he or she had no way of knowing that this could possibly have happened. Washing one’s hands of responsibility is unacceptable: all speakers should accept responsibility for the short-term and long-term consequences of their speeches. Although it is certainly not always the speaker’s fault if someone commits an act of violence, the speaker should take responsibility for her or his role in the situation. This process involves being truly reflective and willing to examine how one’s speech could have tragic consequences. Furthermore, attempting to persuade a group of people to take any action means you should make sure that you understand the consequences of that action. Whether you are persuading people to vote for a political candidate or just encouraging them to lose weight, you should know what the short-term and long-term consequences of that decision could be. While our predictions of short-term and long-term consequences may not always be right, we have an ethical duty to at least think through the possible consequences of our speeches and the actions we encourage.

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Thus far in this section, we’ve introduced you to the basics of thinking through the ethics of public speaking. Knowing about ethics is essential, but even more important to being an ethical public speaker is putting that knowledge into practice by thinking through possible ethical pitfalls prior to standing up and speaking out. Table 5.1 “Public Speaking Ethics Checklist” is a checklist based on our discussion in this chapter to help you think through some of these issues.

Table 5.1 Public Speaking Ethics Checklist

Instructions: For each of the following ethical issues, check either “true” or “false.”

I have knowingly added information within my speech that is false.
I have attempted to persuade people by unnecessarily tapping into emotion rather than logic.
I have not clearly cited all the information within my speech.
I do not know who my sources of information are or what makes my sources credible.
I wrote my speech based on my own interests and really haven’t thought much about my audience.
I haven’t really thought much about my audience’s needs and desires.
I have altered some of the facts in my speech to help me be more persuasive.
Some of the language in my speech may be considered bigoted.
My goal is to manipulate my audience to my point of view.
I sometimes blend in my personal opinions when discussing actual facts during the speech.
I don’t bother to distinguish between the two during my speech.
I’ve used information in my speech from a friend or colleague that probably shouldn’t be repeated.
I’m using information in my speech that a source gave me even though it was technically “off the record.”
It’s just a speech. I really don’t care what someone does with the information when I’m done speaking.
I haven’t really thought about the short- or long-term consequences of my speech. Scoring: For ethical purposes, all your answers should have been “false.”

using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit

according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law, free speech entails “the right to express information, ideas, and opinions free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations (as the power of the government to avoid a clear and present danger) esp. as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution” (Freedom of speech)

occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning

prejudice or discrimination against a particular age-group and especially the elderly

a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of female–male sexuality and relationships

a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

prejudice or discrimination based on sex

It’s About Them: Public Speaking in the 21st Century Copyright © 2022 by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Speechwriting

11 Ethics in Public Speaking

Being a Speaker the Audience Can Trust

In this chapter . . .

In this chapter, you will learn about the importance of ethics in both writing and delivering public speeches. The two major aspects of ethics in terms of public speaking are credibility and plagiarism. We define these issues and present strategies for increasing your credibility and preventing plagiarism, thus allowing you to deliver ethical and effective speeches.

In the fourth century BCE, the classic philosopher Aristotle took up the study of the public speaking practices of the ruling class in Athenian society. For two years he observed the men (it was only men) who spoke publicly in the assembly and the courts. In the end, he developed a theory about persuasiveness that has come down to us in history as a written treatise called Rhetoric. Among his many ideas was the identification of three elements essential to effective public speaking: ethos , logos , and pathos . In short, these mean credibility, reasonability, and emotion.

In this chapter, we will focus on what Aristotle called ethos and what we today would call ethical public speaking . Ethics refers to the branch of philosophy that involves a determination of what is right and moral. On a personal level, it’s a standard of what you should and should not do in various situations. Although ethics are based on personal decisions and values, they are also influenced by factors outside of you.

Ethical Public Speaking

Ethical Public Speaking refers to those aspects of public speaking that pertain to the personal character of a public speaker and the quality of the content they present in a speech. It involves honest research and truthful presentation, good intentions towards the audience, and the integrity of ideas. We are ethical speakers when we write and present speeches that respect these values.

Honesty & Truthfulness

Ethical public speaking requires adherence to factual truth and respect for your audience. This means that you’ll do your best to present factual, well-documented information designed to improve their lives and help them make informed, intelligent decisions with it. Honesty and truthfulness mean not telling lies and being thorough in representing the truth. When quotes are intentionally taken out of context to misrepresent the original author’s intent or to deceive the audience this isn’t honest research. You may have heard of the phrase “cherry-picking facts.” That’s when essential information is ignored in order to promote one version of the facts. When this happens, honesty fails because the truth is skewed.

A speaker is ethical when the intention of their communication is in the best interest of the audience. It means approaching the speech with honest purpose and wanting the best experience for the audience. If a speaker aims at manipulation, falsifies information, insults the audience, or simply has no intention of fulfilling the purpose of a speech, then they are not acting with good will.

When public speakers research and write speeches, they are expected to do so in a way that respects the sources from which they gain their knowledge and ideas. Furthermore, it’s the responsibility of the speaker to utilize factually accurate sources. When using sources known to be biased it’s important to acknowledge this. This is no different from the way that any writers (students, journalists, researchers, and teachers) are expected to acknowledge the sources of ideas. When we fail to do that, it’s called plagiarism. Plagiarism is unethical and will be discussed in depth below.

When a public speaker successfully conveys to their audience that they possess the qualities of integrity, good will, honesty, and truthfulness, then they have established speaker credibility . “Credibility” means the “quality that someone or something has that makes people believe or trust them” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary). The success of any speech depends on the speaker’s establishing credibility with their audience. Simple forms of credibility statements form a part of the introduction of a speech, as described in the chapter Introductions and Conclusions . What follows in this chapter is a more in-depth discussion of this important quality.

Being a Credible Speaker

Speaker credibility is the positive attitude that the audience acquires toward a speaker. It’s based on both reality and perception and leads the audience to believe that the speaker is honest and competent. An audience wants to be “in good hands” and they use their intelligence and powers of observation to judge whether they should put their trust in a speaker.

Credibility is a product of both the content of a speech and its delivery. It’s related to what the audience hears in a speech as well as their perceptions, or even gut feelings, about the intangible characteristics of the speaker such as appearance, friendliness, sense of humor, likability, poise, and communication ability. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of establishing speaker credibility.

Let’s assume you’re giving an informative speech and you have worked diligently on all the elements of ethical public speaking. The content of your speech is honest (based on fact) and truthful (not “cherry-picked”). You’ve been careful to cite your research sources properly. You have the good intention to educate your audience about the topic and you will avoid manipulating, talking down to, or insulting your audience. You’re a credible speaker, certainly. However, your challenge is this: how do you convey to the audience that you are credible? What are the signs of credibility that they will hear and see? What do you say or do as a speaker so that the audience knows they are “in good hands”—that they can trust in you and in what you have to say?

Because credibility is made up of many factors, both verbal and non-verbal, this isn’t a simple question to answer. Establishing credibility is achieved in both speechwriting and delivery.

Establishing Credibility through Speechwriting

Some of the traits of credibility that a speaker conveys through speechwriting include:

A speaker is credible when they establish their competence on a topic. Competence means the speaker possesses the right level of expertise and sound knowledge about the speech topic, which they have acquired through research or firsthand experience. The speaker explains what the topic means to them and how they learned about it, with statements like: “I started studying the history of Ukraine last year and became fascinated by the people I met” or “I’ve always loved animals and have been volunteering at my local humane society for the past three years.”

Organization

A speaker establishes credibility with a speech that is organized and allows the audience to follow. Good, structured speeches allow the audience to relax and trust the speaker. Organized speeches state and restate their thesis and main ideas, using redundancy to beneficial effect. They allow the audience to follow along by providing connections, summaries, and previews.

Relationship

A speaker becomes credible by establishing a relationship with the audience. The speaker shows that they have thought about who the audience is, both demographically and psychographically and may say something like “I’m happy to be speaking to a group of new voters.” The speaker introduces themselves (if they haven’t already been introduced by a host); and finds common ground with the audience and communicates these similarities. “Like you, I understand the challenges of being a student athlete . . . ” or “I know it must be strange to hear a 21-year-old talk to you today about retirement, but I helped my grandparents for several years and . . .”

A speaker is credible to an audience when they make use of, and cite, credible sources. Quotations without acknowledgments or mentioning sources by saying “I read on a website that . . . ” will not gain the trust of audience. In speeches that involve research, that present information beyond your own experience, be sure to properly acknowledge your sources. Not doing so will sow the seeds of doubt in an audience and undermine their trust. In speechwriting, this is called “spoken citation” and will be discussed further on in this chapter.

The Importance of the Introduction

While credibility through speechwriting is established throughout the entire speech, pay close attention to the introduction. The introduction is crucial to establishing your credibility. The introduction is the part of the speech where you state your topic and tell the audience why you chose it, what expertise you bring to it, and what it means to you. It’s also the part of the speech when you state your name and affiliation and establish the common interests you share with your audience.

Establishing Credibility through Delivery

Preparation.

Speakers are credible to an audience when they show they are prepared. Unless it’s an entirely impromptu speech occasion, the audience expects a speaker to be ready to speak. Unprepared, unrehearsed, messy, or incomplete notes, losing their place, going off on a tangent, going over allotted time—these are things that will diminish credibility.

A Proper Start

Pay attention to how you enter the speaking area and take stage. Body language speaks volumes. This is where “good will” shows itself. If you drag your feet to the stage and look as if giving a speech is the last thing you want to do, why would the audience trust you to care about them?

Pace and Volume

An audience feels that they can trust a speaker who takes the time to speak to them at a comfortable pace and with a volume they can hear.

Eye Contact

A speaker enhances their credibility with an audience through eye contact, establishing a relationship with the audience. An audience wants to be seen. Engaging with them physically helps them stay engaged with your content.

Body Language

Maintaining good posture throughout the speech gives the audience more confidence in you. This will also ensure better volume and eye contact. Using clear and intentional gestures emphasizes particular points and makes the speech visual more interesting.

A Proper Ending

As with a proper start, how you leave the stage is an element in the impression the audience will take away.

On Speaker Credibility—Other Considerations

Before you can encourage the audience’s trust in you, you need to do some self-examination about the elements of credibility that you possess in general and in relation to the specific speech occasion. This is a necessary step. An honest assessment of your credibility will help you in two ways: First, it helps you strategize how you will convey your strengths to the audience, and second, it helps you avoid dishonest or exaggerated claims of credibility. Ask yourself: Is your speech content honest and truthful? Have you done your best to make your speech easy to follow and understand? What do you want for your audience? Who is your audience and what do you have in common with them?

If credibility is a matter of audience perception, does that mean that credibility is only what a speaker manages to get the audience to believe about them, rather than what is actually true about the speaker? Of course not. The factors of credibility and ethical public speaking must be real before a speaker can successfully convey these qualities to an audience.

That said, it’s an unfortunate fact of public discourse that speakers misrepresent their credibility all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally. Can you think of situations where speakers pretended to be experts when they were not? When they say that they really care about a subject when there is evidence to the contrary? Or, they boast of having similarities with an audience—for example, boasting of a religious affiliation with the audience—but they don’t really possess these similarities? To intentionally misrepresent your background, such as experience and credentials, is clearly unethical. No doubt you can think of many such instances.

Unethical speakers do this because they know how important it’s to establish credibility with an audience. But managing to pass off lies about your credibility doesn’t mean you’re actually credible ! Perceptive audience members will know the difference.

Defining Plagiarism

An ethical public speaker has integrity. Although there are many ways that you could undermine your ethical stance before an audience, the one that stands out and is committed most in academic contexts is plagiarism . A dictionary definition of plagiarism would be “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). According to the student help website Plagiarism.org, sponsored by WriteCheck, plagiarism is often thought of as “copying another’s work or borrowing someone else’s original ideas” (“What is Plagiarism?” 2014). However, this source goes on to say that the common definition may mislead some people. Plagiarism also includes:

Turning in someone else’s work as your own
Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
Failing to put quotation marks around an exact quotation correctly
Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up most of your work, whether you give credit or not

Plagiarism exists outside of the classroom and is a temptation in business, creative endeavors, and politics.

Types of Plagiarism

Generally, there are three types of plagiarism: direct, incorrect paraphrasing, and self-plagiarism. Sometimes these types of plagiarism are intentional, and sometimes they occur unintentionally (you may not know you’re plagiarizing). However, as everyone knows, “Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse for breaking it.” Unintentional or accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism. Furthermore, the penalties for plagiarism are steep and it’s considered a serious act of misconduct. So, let’s familiarize you with how plagiarism occurs in order to prevent it from happening.

No one wants to be the victim of theft; if it has ever happened to you, you know how awful it feels. When a student takes an essay, research paper, speech, or outline completely from another source, whether it’s a classmate who submitted it for another instructor, from some sort of online essay mill, or from elsewhere, this is an act of theft. If you take a whole text and claim it’s yours, you are committing plagiarism; you are deliberately and directly lying about the authorship of a work. Even just lifting a short passage directly from a source without quoting it and using proper citation, is a form of stealing, thus plagiarism. You are committing plagiarism even if you delete or change a couple of words. If the structure and most of the words are the same as in the original, and you imply it’s your own work, this counts as direct plagiarism. If properly acknowledged and justified, it’s permissible to use verbatim short parts of another work, as discussed below.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means taking someone else’s ideas and rephrasing them in your own words. There’s nothing wrong with rephrasing, in fact, it’s the basis of how we write and think. However, ethical writing (including speechwriting) means acknowledging the source of your ideas by citing or mentioning it. When you restate or summarize information from a source and don’t include a citation you are implying that those ideas came from you. Paraphrasing without citation is the most common form of plagiarism because it often happens unintentionally.

Another unethical, and more deliberate, form of incorrect paraphrasing is when you take two out of every three sentences and mix them up, so they don’t appear in the same order as in the original work. Perhaps the student will add a fresh introduction, a personal example or two, and an original conclusion.

Many students don’t see this as the same thing as stealing because they think “I did some research, I looked some stuff up, and I added some of my own work.” Yet this is only marginally better than direct plagiarism. Why? Because no source has been credited, and the student has “misappropriated” the expression of the ideas as well as the ideas themselves.

A similar sort of paraphrasing plagiarism involves copying passages from various sources and editing them together, mixed with some of your own words. If you do this and don’t correctly cite each source, it’s plagiarism. Furthermore, if your entire paper consists of predominantly the work of other authors that you have stitched together, whether you cite it or not, it’s plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism

Some colleges and universities have a policy that penalizes or forbids “ self-plagiarism .” This means that you can’t use a paper or outline that you presented in another class a second time. You may think, “How can this be plagiarism or wrong if I wrote both and, in my work, I cited sources correctly?” The issue with re-using your own work is that you are not putting in the amount of effort expected for an assignment. One way to avoid self-plagiarism, particularly if your previous work is published, is to cite yourself. When in doubt, ask first.

Other Considerations

One area in speeches where students are not careful about citing is on their presentation slides. If a graphic or photo is borrowed from a website (that is, you did not design it), there should be a citation in small letters on the slide. The same would be true of borrowed quotations, data, and ideas. Students also like to put their “works cited” or “references” on the last slide, but this really does not help the audience to match particular images or material to the original source.

An issue that often comes up with students happens when two or more students submit the same assignment. When confronted, the student says, “We worked on it together.” If your instructor wants you to work collaboratively, they will make that clear. Otherwise, don’t do this. Always assume you are expected o turn in your own work. Any use of unauthorized assistance is considered cheating.

Finally, using AI technologies such as chat bots to produce the text of a speech is equivalent to turning in something written by someone else. While it may be permissible to use technology for editing grammar and spelling, you are the author and the idea you present should be the result of your own thinking. Unless stated otherwise in your instructor’s policy, using AI to write a speech constitutes plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism involves, first, the intention to create your own work. If you begin by assuming you can take other work and present it as your own, you will surely be in the realm of plagiarism. The second part of avoiding plagiarism is to learn the proper way to cite the sources you use. To “cite” means to provide the sources for your research, creating what is called a “citation.” Citations appear in written work, including essays and speeches, and on many websites, images, and more. Explaining exactly how to create citations for a written essay or research paper is outside the scope of this textbook. There are also free online tools that will generate proper citations for you. In this section and the one following it, we will focus on spoken citations as they appear in a speech—in other words, how to create a citation for listeners, not readers.

Avoiding Plagiarism with Direct Sources

As explained above, copying whole works from another source is plagiarism. But there are times when it’s appropriate to use a small amount of a source’s exact wording. You should have a good reason for inserting a direct quote. Typically, we quote when the source or author is highly respected, or they have stated the idea in a compelling way, or the material is well known, and others would recognize it. We also quote when we are discussing or analyzing a specific part of a text.

Whether you are using a phrase, a sentence, or even several sentences from another’s work, if you use exact words from a source, it requires quotation. Quoting tells the reader and listener that you are using the exact words from a source. The proper way to manage direct quotes in a speech text is to provide quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quote followed by a source citation. The most common citation is a parenthetical reference such as (Smith 12) where the author’s last name and the page number are written in parentheses following the quote. This parenthetical reference should correspond to a full citation in the bibliography. Alternatively, you can use a superscript number at the end of the quotation that corresponds to a full citation listed in footnotes/endnotes.

When using direct quotations, you should make it clear you’re quoting by the way in which you introduce and end the borrowed material, as in examples further below. A common practice in public speaking is to say quote and/or make air quotes to specify you are about to give a direct quote. It can also be beneficial to change your vocal tone and use appropriate gestures to help differentiate the quote from your own words.

Avoiding Plagiarism when Paraphrasing

As stated earlier, paraphrasing is common form of plagiarism because it often happens unintentionally. It’s important to understand what good paraphrasing is. Look at this example of an original source and three possible ways to paraphrase it.

Original information, posted on CNN.com website, October 31, 2015:

“The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year. More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said. The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retro-active, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%, the commission said. Early release will be a challenge for the inmates as well as the judicial bureaucracy” (Casarez, 2015).

With that as the original source, which of the following three is truly paraphrasing?

The CNN News website says the federal government is releasing 40,000 felons from prison in the next few years.
According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015, the federal government’s Sentencing Commission is beginning to release prisoners in November based on a decision made in 2014. That decision was to make maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders shorter by an average of 18%. Over the next several years over 40,000 federal felons could be let go. However, this policy change to early release will not be easy for the justice system or those released.
The largest release ever of federal inmates will take place in early November. At first 6,600 inmates will be released, and then over 16,000 over the first year. The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it could release over 40,000 federal felons over the upcoming years because the sentencing commission decided a year ago to lessen maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make this happen for those already in jail. When the Sentencing Commission says that when it made that decision, the sentences were reduced by an average of 18%. Early release will be a challenge for the felons as well as the judicial system. This came from a story on CNN News website in later October 2015.

If you chose the second paraphrase, you would be correct. It uses different language and identifies the source of the information clearly at the beginning. The first version does not really interpret the original statement correctly, and the third choice imitates the original almost entirely. Neither of these two would be good paraphrasing.

Notice that each paraphrase example includes a citation that provides the source of the material, but only the second paraphrase does so completely: “According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015 . . . “

There is a general rule of research that says that if the information you are using is “common knowledge”—dates and facts for example or other information a general reader should know—then it doesn’t need to be cited. A good rule of thumb is if the same information can be found in 4-5 sources where it was not cited, it’s common knowledge. But if it’s an original idea, research results, or the author’s interpretation of common facts then it needs to be cited. If you are in doubt whether you should cite something or not, always err on the side of caution. Over-citing is much better than the alternative: plagiarism.

Keep in mind good research takes time. Procrastinating leads to being unduly pressured to finish. This sort of pressure can lead to sloppy research habits and bad decisions. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to complete your speech so it’s both ethical and well executed.

One way to avoid accidental plagiarism is to keep track of your citations as you are researching and writing. This prevents forgetting where a quotation came from or misattributing the source. Citation managers such as Zotero and Mendeley (which are free to download) not only keep track of all your sources while you research and write they can create instant bibliographies.

Creating Spoken Citations

Now that you understand using two forms of source material—direct quotation, and paraphrase—and you understand the importance of citing your sources to your audience, exactly how should you include a citation in a speech?

In a paper, you would only need to include a written citation such as “(Jones 78)” for a source that the reader can find in the bibliography. But it doesn’t work like for a speech. In a speech, saying “Jones, 78” doesn’t mean anything. Even saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” does little for the audience. Why? Because they can’t turn to a bibliography. They don’t have another way to understand the type of information being conveyed. In speeches it’s necessary, therefore, to give more complete information that would help the audience understand its value. This is why these are called spoken citations .

What information needs to be included in a spoken citation? The page number, the publishing company, and city it was published in are not very important. What is important is the type of source : for example, a website, scholarly article, newspaper article, or a book. Then, you should include when it was written, if possible, and the position, background, or credentials of the source. There are no fixed rules, however. In determining what should go into the verbal citation, think about the information that is necessary to clarify the relevance and credibility of your source for your audience and let that be your guide.

For example, instead of saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” a better approach would be,

According to Dr. Samuel Jones, Head of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University, in a 2010 article . . .

Whether you are introducing a direct quote or a paraphrase, you can see that it’s best to begin with the citation . Take these examples:

In her 2012 book, The Iraq War in Context, historian Mary Smith of the University of Georgia states that . . .

In consulting the website for the American Humane Society, I found these statistics about animal abuse compiled by the Society in 2023:

In the first example, you would insert a quote from Smith’s book after your spoken citation. In the second example, a paraphrase would be appropriate. For example:

In his 2014 book, Talk Like Ted, public speaking guru Carmine Gallo states that “Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century.”

In consulting the website TED.org, I learned that the TED organization does much more than sponsoring TED talks. There are also podcasts, a video series, and television programs.

Sometimes when using direct quotes, speakers find it helpful to clarify where the quote begins and ends by saying the word “quote.” In that case, this is an example of exactly what a speaker would say:

In her 2023 memoir entitled Finding Me , the actor Viola Davis writes, quote, “I felt my call was to become an actress. It wasn’t. It was bigger than that. I was bigger than my successes.” End quote.

As mentioned above, a speaker can achieve the same effect by making a gesture of air quotes or changing the tone of the voice.

To conclude, citing your sources is immensely important. It shows that you have done proper research to support your ideas and arguments and it allows your audience to find the material if they want more information. Using clear citations makes your speech more credible to the audience.

This chapter introduced you to the ethics of public speaking and how being an ethical public speaker makes you a credible public speaker that audiences will trust. Using sources ethically means not only proper citation, but taking care that the information you use is relevant and presented in context. Avoid manipulating statistical information or taking a quotation from an expert in one field and present as if they are an expert in another field. Differentiate facts from opinions, especially when dealing with controversial subjects. In addition, be sure you understand the material you’re citing before using it. If you’re unsure of any words, look their definitions up so you’re sure to be using the material as it’s intended. Finally, it’s important that you understand the type of publication or source you’re using and any potential biases. It’s your responsibility to help the audience understand the reliability of a particular source, the purpose of including any cited information, and how it relates to your overarching argument.

Something to Think About

The following exercise might be helpful for you to develop an understanding of orally citing your sources.

Choose one of your sources for an upcoming speech for this exercise. On a sheet of paper, answer these questions.

Is this information you found in a unique source, or information that was repeated in all or most of your sources? (This may bear upon whether you need to cite the information or not.)
Who is the original author or “speaker” of this quotation or material? Are they an expert, such as a scientist, doctor, government official, college professor, etc.?
What is the title of source?
What do you know about the source of the citation? What is the medium (book, article, website)?
If a website, who sponsors the website (what organization, government, company)?
When was this information published? What is the date on it?

It’s not necessary to give all this information, but most of it should be included in the citation.

Press ESC to close

Public Speaking Ethics: Principles of Responsible Communication

To ensure responsible communication in public speaking, this introduction sets the stage for our exploration of public speaking ethics. By defining public speaking ethics and emphasizing the importance of responsible communication, we establish the foundation for ethical practices and effective public speaking engagement.

Definition of public speaking ethics

Public speaking ethics involve moral standards and principles which guide people when giving speeches or presentations in public. This includes honesty, respect, credibility, and fairness .

To have ethical public speaking, speakers must be honest by giving accurate facts and not lying. They must also show respect to their audience by talking without insults or hurtful language.

Credibility is key too. Speakers must prove they know the subject and provide evidence. They should not exaggerate or lie which would damage their trustworthiness.

Fairness is a must. Speakers must present different points of view without bias. They should give equal attention to counterarguments, without distorting or ignoring them.

To uphold these ethics, speakers can research thoroughly before preparing. They can actively listen to their audience’s needs and interests.

They can also use visuals to help understand and engage their audience. Lastly, they should maintain eye contact with the crowd to build trust.

Adhering to ethical standards in public speaking is very important. It preserves integrity and builds trust with the audience. Honesty, respect, credibility, and fairness are essential for effective communication and inspiring trust.

Importance of responsible communication in public speaking ethics

Public speaking is a responsible communication skill . It needs ideas and info to be shared with an audience, considering their needs, perspectives, and sensitivities. Empathy and emotional intelligence are key to responsible communication. Power dynamics must be respected and not reinforced. An inclusive environment should be created where everyone is valued.

Research and fact-checking is crucial for accurate info . This maintains credibility and encourages trust. Bias should be acknowledged and consciously worked on. Effective listening is also important, to respond respectfully and create dialogue. This encourages critical thinking and openness to other perspectives.

Also Read: Find Your Passion: A Path to Self-Discovery and Fulfillment

Ethical Principles in Public Speaking

To ensure ethical principles in public speaking, address the following sub-sections: honesty and truthfulness, respect for the audience, integrity and transparency, and avoiding plagiarism. Upholding these principles fosters responsible communication and maintains the credibility and trust between speakers and their audience.

Honesty and truthfulness – Public Speaking Ethics

To show honesty and truthfulness in public speaking, one must prepare and research the topic. Get info from reliable sources like journals, websites, and expert opinions . Do this so you can confidently present ideas based on facts.

Be transparent about any biases or conflicts of interest. Acknowledge these to show commitment to honesty and avoid any doubts from the audience.

Avoid exaggeration or embellishment when presenting info. Accurately represent the facts without distorting for dramatic effect. This maintains integrity and ensures the audience gets accurate info.

If there are uncertainties or gaps in knowledge, honestly admit them. Don’t make assumptions or provide misleading info. Show humility and authenticity to prevent misinformation.

Overall, upholding principles of honesty and truthfulness in public speaking leads to credibility and trust with the audience. Listeners rely on accurate info from an honest speaker and are more likely to engage with the message.

Practice active listening skills to understand audience needs and concerns. This will help tailor the message while maintaining honesty and truthfulness.

Respect for audience – Public Speaking Ethics

Respect your audience! It’s key to a successful public speaking engagement. Show that you value them. Make them more likely to engage with your message.

Start by preparing thoroughly. Tailor your speech to their needs and interests. Show that you value their time.

Be mindful of language and tone. Use clear sentences. Avoid jargon unless needed.

Listen to their feedback. Encourage participation with interactive elements. Foster inclusivity within the audience.

Consider the physical aspects. Ensure proper lighting and acoustics. Use visual aids wisely.

Aware of cultural sensitivities. Respect values and beliefs. Avoid offensive topics unless necessary. Create an atmosphere of respect.

Integrity and transparency – Public Speaking Ethics

Be honest in your info-sharing. Don’t distort facts or make exaggerated claims, as this will damage your integrity. Clearly cite sources and provide proof to back up your statements. This shows responsibility and builds credibility. Disclose any affiliations or biases that could affect the speech content, so the audience can make their own decisions. Respect confidentiality when needed. Keep sensitive info secret and don’t share it without permission.

Live with integrity and transparency when speaking publicly. This not only boosts your credibility but also helps you build relationships with the audience. Set expectations for integrity and transparency at the start of your speech. This will help create a trusting space and encourage participation. By following ethical principles, you show others how to do the same and promote a culture of honesty in public speaking. Let’s make use of these values today, for a better tomorrow!

Avoiding plagiarism – Public Speaking Ethics

To dodge plagiarism, here are some important guidelines to follow:

Principle – Description
Cite Sources – Give proper credit for info taken from outside.
Paraphrase – Express your thoughts in your own words.
Use Quotations – Put quotation marks when quoting directly.
Reference Page – Include a list of all sources used.

Even if you switch a few words, it still counts as plagiarism.

Plagiarism has been a problem in public speaking for many years. Famous figures like MLK Jr. and Joe Biden have been accused of plagiarism. To keep credibility, public speakers must be original and use ethical practices.

Also Read: Techniques for Innovative Thinking: Boost Creative Thinking

Ethical Challenges in Public Speaking

To navigate ethical challenges in public speaking, employ principles of responsible communication. Balancing persuasion and manipulation, handling sensitive topics, and ensuring diversity and inclusivity in speech content are key sub-sections explored here.

Balancing persuasion and manipulation

Public speaking is a balance between persuasion and manipulation . We can influence others, but we must be careful not to use manipulative tactics. Engage your audience honestly and ethically, with compelling ideas – without resorting to deceptive techniques.

Seek to convince your listeners with logical arguments, supported by evidence. Use rhetoric and storytelling to captivate their attention. There is a fine line between persuasion and manipulation – manipulation involves deceitful tactics or exploiting vulnerabilities, while persuasion relies on honest communication.

Be mindful of your intentions and impact – strive for authenticity. Share accurate and reliable information to build trust with your audience; ensure that they make informed decisions, rather than being coerced or misled.

Choose persuasion over manipulation – let your words empower others, not deceive them!

Handling sensitive topics

Talking in public can be tricky , especially when it’s about delicate themes. You must be careful, respectful and professional when dealing with them. It’s a matter of finding the balance between expressing your opinion while keeping in mind the potential effect on the listeners.

For delicate topics, empathy and understanding are essential. Acknowledge the different views to create an open and welcoming setting. Doing thorough research is also important to have a full grasp of the subject.

Moreover, the language you use is vital. Utilize respectful and inclusive terms to communicate effectively without causing any harm.

Moreover, being aware of your own prejudices and trying to be impartial while speaking is necessary. That way, you can share info without injecting your personal opinions.

As Maya Angelou said: “ Words have more power than what’s written on paper “. So, be mindful of the words you use when talking about sensitive matters publicly.

Ensuring diversity and inclusivity in speech content

Ensuring diverse and inclusive speech content is essential for public speaking. It involves considering different perspectives and engaging with a wide variety of people. Doing this creates a more relatable and meaningful message.

Importance of Diversity:

Reflects the real world.
Encourages empathy and understanding.
Breaks down barriers and encourages inclusivity.

Embracing diversity means recognizing varied cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. It enables speakers to connect deeper with their audience, creating a sense of belonging and appreciation. Considering diverse points of view helps to confront prejudices and stereotypes, enabling a healthier flow of ideas.

To make sure speech content is inclusive, one must strive for representation across different aspects such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, ability, and sexual orientation. This goes beyond tokenism – it requires genuine efforts to understand different perspectives and amplify diverse voices.

Let us keep in mind that embracing diversity in speech content is not only a moral obligation but also a potent force for social change. By creating an atmosphere that values everyone’s contributions equally, we can inspire beneficial changes within ourselves and society.

So let’s include diversity in our speeches today!

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Case Studies: Examples of Ethical and Unethical Public Speaking

To better understand ethical and unethical public speaking, dive into case studies that showcase real-life examples. Explore ethical examples and unethical examples, highlighting the principles of responsible communication.

Ethical examples

Public speaking can either inspire or deceive. Ethically, it must be accurate and honest. Here are examples of ethical public speaking:

A balanced approach – presenting both sides of an argument.
Respecting diversity – accepting and valuing different cultures.
Emphasis on consent – always seek permission before using personal stories.
Engagement with the audience – active listening, interaction and participation.

Truthfulness is key in ethical public speaking. Present facts without bias to build trust. John Dawson’s TED Talk is a great example. He used complex scientific data in a way that was understandable for all. He communicated the urgency of climate change ethically and accurately.

Unethical examples

Public speaking is a tool to motivate, inform, and convince an audience. But, there are times when it goes against ethics. Here are some:

Plagiarism: Giving a presentation with other people’s words or ideas without giving due credit is wrong.
Misrepresentation: Giving false info or distorting facts to manipulate the audience is unethical.
Exploitation: Using emotionally charged stories or personal tragedies to get sympathy or support is wrong.
Hate speech: Discriminating, prejudicing, or hating individuals or groups based on race, gender, religion, or any other characteristic is not okay.
Conflict of interest: Not disclosing financial or personal interests that may influence the message undermines trustworthiness.

Note: These are just a few examples. There might be others.

As public speakers, it’s important to make sure our talks are engaging and ethical. By respecting others’ property rights, giving honest info, avoiding exploitation, promoting inclusivity, and revealing conflicts of interest, we can keep our speeches effective.

Pro Tip: An essential part of ethical speaking is being transparent with your audience. Honesty and truthfulness build trust and credibility.

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Strategies for Responsible Communication

To effectively practice responsible communication, you need strategies that address key aspects of public speaking ethics. In “Strategies for Responsible Communication,” we’ll explore techniques that focus on preparing and researching thoroughly, being mindful of the impact of words and language, as well as engaging in active listening and responding to audience feedback. These approaches will help you become a more ethical and responsible communicator.

Preparing and researching thoroughly

Research your topic extensively for a deep understanding. This will ensure you give accurate and relevant information.
Organize your thoughts before communicating. This helps give structure and coherence.
Double-check facts and figures to maintain credibility. Accurate data adds reliability to your communication.
For best results, go beyond surface-level details. Look into lesser-known aspects to offer a new viewpoint.

Pro Tip: Use scholarly articles or peer-reviewed publications for reliable info.

Being mindful of the impact of words and language

The power of language can’t be overlooked. Each word we say or type carries the strength to form thoughts, opinions, and even encourage action. We must understand this power and take responsibility for our messages.

To truly grasp the effects of our words, we must consider many factors, such as cultural awareness, emotional responses, and the authority involved in any situation.

Also, when speaking, it’s essential to use language that is open-minded and not prejudicial. This helps make an environment where everyone feels appreciated and accepted. To do this, avoid judgemental terms, stereotypes, or generalizations.

Moreover, it’s important to bear in mind the context in which we communicate. The same message may have different impacts based on if it’s spoken in person, written in an email, or posted on social media. We can make sure our ideas are accurately represented by adjusting our words to the medium.

Furthermore, active listening is a central part of responsible communication. Taking the time to understand someone else’s perspective allows for efficient dialogue and engagement. This shows respect for their views and encourages mutual understanding.

To further improve responsible communication , here are a few tips:

Show empathy by thinking about how others feel before expressing your views or making judgments. Doing this allows us to connect with people on a deeper level and encourages open-mindedness.
Ask questions when conversations are unclear or confusing. Not only does this ensure understanding, but it also demonstrates a real interest in what others have to say.

Lastly, always strive for clarity in your own communication. Being straightforward and specific helps avoid misunderstandings and keeps the conversation on track.

By taking into account the impact of our words, selecting inclusive language, adapting to different contexts, actively listening, practicing empathy, seeking clarifications, and striving for clarity, we can create a responsible communication culture where ideas are exchanged and understood with respect.

Engaging in active listening and responding to audience feedback

Active listening involves more than just hearing words. It’s about taking in the non-verbal cues like facial expressions and body language too. This is important as it provides us with invaluable insights into how our audience really feels about our efforts.

An example of this in action is from 2019. A well-known company faced negative feedback about a product launch. Instead of ignoring it, they actively listened. They considered the concerns raised and acted to fix it. By admitting mistakes and finding solutions based on customer feedback, they regained trust, improved customer satisfaction, and even increased sales!

This proves that active listening and responding to audience feedback is key. It can create an open communication culture, strengthen relationships, and help our message resonate. Remember, effective communication is a two-way street! Valuing and responding to feedback ensures success.

Also Read: Top 100 Commonly Used A to Z Phrasal Verbs for English Fluency

To conclude, reinforce the ethical principles in public speaking and emphasize the importance of practicing responsible communication. Recap the ethical principles covered in previous sections and discuss the significance of adopting these principles in our speech. Highlight the value of responsible communication for building trust and fostering positive relationships.

Recap of ethical principles in public speaking

Public speaking requires sticking to ethical principles . Let’s review these key principles:

Honesty: Be honest to the audience. Don’t exaggerate or lie. This builds trust and reliability.
Respect: Respect different opinions. No language or behavior which offends or leaves people out.
Integrity: Be consistent and genuine in what you say and do. Match values and words to gain trust.

Plus, confidentiality, fairness, and responsibility should be kept in mind while speaking publicly.

An example illustrating the importance of ethical principles ? At a conference, the speaker was impressive. But in the Q&A session, he evaded questions and even made false claims. This unethical behavior made people feel deceived. It was a lesson on the importance of ethical standards in public speaking.

Ethical principles make it easier for speakers and audiences to connect. They show respect, trust, and integrity. Remembering these principles helps our message reach each listener in a genuine way.

Importance of practicing responsible communication.

In today’s fast-paced world, responsible communication is essential. It helps us make sure our messages are understood. Plus, it builds trust and maintains healthy relationships.

Responsible communication avoids misinterpretations and conflicts. We can pick our words carefully and think of the impact they have. This way, we show respect and create a positive atmosphere for discussion.

Responsible communication also boosts our credibility and professionalism. We can express ourselves clearly and concisely, so it’s easier for others to understand.

It’s also great for navigating sensitive subjects. We can express criticism without causing offense or harm. This encourages dialogue, rather than shutting it down.

Remember: Responsible communication is a two-way street. Listening is just as important as speaking. Show others the same respect and attention you expect from them. Know More – The Fluent Life

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are public speaking ethics? A. Public speaking ethics refer to the principles and guidelines that govern responsible communication during public speaking engagements. They outline the ethical obligations and responsibilities speakers have towards their audience, content, and the impact their words may have on individuals or society.

2. Why are public speaking ethics important? A. Public speaking ethics are important because they ensure that speakers communicate responsibly, truthfully, and with integrity. They help maintain credibility, foster trust between the speaker and the audience, and promote respectful and ethical discourse in public spaces.

3. What are some key principles of responsible communication in public speaking? A. Some key principles of responsible communication in public speaking include honesty, accuracy, respect for diverse perspectives, avoiding harm, maintaining confidentiality when required, citing sources properly, and being mindful of the potential impact of words on others.

4. How can a speaker avoid unethical behavior during a public speaking engagement? A. A speaker can avoid unethical behavior during a public speaking engagement by conducting thorough research, fact-checking information before presenting it, avoiding plagiarism, using inclusive language, respecting the audience’s privacy and boundaries, and being open to feedback and constructive criticism.

5. Can public speaking ethics restrict freedom of speech? A. No, public speaking ethics do not restrict freedom of speech. They aim to promote responsible and ethical communication without infringing on individuals’ rights to express their opinions. Public speaking ethics provide guidelines to ensure that speeches are delivered in a manner that respects the dignity and rights of others.

6. What can the audience do if they suspect a speaker is engaging in unethical behavior? A. If an audience member suspects a speaker is engaging in unethical behavior, they can actively listen, critically analyze the speech, and if appropriate, ask for clarifications or challenge the speaker’s statements during Q&A sessions. Additionally, they can report their concerns to event organizers or relevant authorities, where necessary.

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Chapter 2: Ethics in Public Speaking

This chapter, except where otherwise noted, is adapted from Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking , CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 .

What are the objectives of ethical speaking?

Now that you’ve learned the foundations of public speaking, you know that creating a speech involves more than just slapping some facts together and hoping your audience listens. In this module, we move on to explore a core element of public speaking: the importance of ethical communication. We’ve all heard advertisers, received a sales pitch, and listened to politicians who try and persuade us to take some action. But how do we know these are ethical communications? Speechmakers may manipulate facts, present one-sided arguments, and even lie to persuade their audience. And the audience may be fooled if they are not listening critically. None of these actions involve ethical communication. When speakers do not speak ethically, they taken advantage of their audience. When an audience does not listen critically, they disrespect the speaker.

In this module, we will explore what it means to be both an ethical speaker and an ethical listener. You can ethically and effectively persuade. And you can take responsibility to be ethically informed. We will show you how.

Ethical Speaking

An angel and a demon playing chess with people as the pieces

Every day, people around the world make ethical decisions regarding public speech, for example, is it ever appropriate to lie if it’s in a group’s best interest? Should you use evidence to support your speech’s core argument when you are not sure if the evidence is correct? Should you refuse to listen to a speaker with whom you fundamentally disagree? These three examples represent ethical choices that speakers and listeners face in the public speaking context. To help you understand the issues involved with thinking about ethics, we begin this module by presenting an ethical communications model, known as the ethics pyramid. We will then show how you can apply the National Communication Association’s (NCA) Credo for Ethical Communication to public speaking. We will conclude with a general free speech discussion.

The Ethics Pyramid

One way to talk about ethics is to use the ethics pyramid. What is the ethics pyramid?

A pyramid with intent on the bottom, means in the middle, and ends at the top

According to Tilley, intent is the first major concept to consider when examining an issue’s ethicality. To be an ethical speaker or listener, it is important to begin with ethical intentions. For example, if we agree that honesty is ethical, it follows that ethical speakers will prepare their remarks with the intent to tell the truth to their audiences. Similarly, if we agree that it is ethical to listen with an open mind, it follows that ethical listeners will intend to hear a speaker’s case before forming judgments.

Many professional organizations, including the Independent Computer Consultants Association, American Counseling Association, and American Society of Home Inspectors, have codes of conduct or ethical guidelines for their members. Individual corporations such as Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Intel, and ConocoPhillips also have ethical guidelines for how their employees should interact with suppliers or clients.

It is important to be aware that people can unintentionally engage in unethical behavior. For example, suppose we agree that it is unethical to take someone else’s words and pass them off as your own—a behavior known as plagiarism. What happens if a speaker makes a statement that he believes he thought of on his own, but the statement is actually quoted from a radio commentator whom he heard without clearly remembering doing so? The plagiarism is unintentional, but does that make it ethical?

Tilley describes the means you use to communicate with others as the ethics pyramid’s second concept. According to McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond, “means are the tools or behaviors we employ to achieve a desired outcome” (McCroskey, Wrench, & Richmond, 2003). Some means are good and some bad.

For example, suppose you want your friend Marty to spend an hour reviewing your speech. What means might you use to persuade Marty to do you this favor? You might explain to Marty’s that you value his opinion and will gladly return the favor when Marty prepares his speech (good means), or you might inform Marty that you’ll tell his professor that he cheated on a test (bad means). While both of these means may lead to the same end—Marty agrees to review your speech—one is clearly more ethical than the other.

Ends is the ethics pyramid s third concept. According to McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond (McCroskey, Wrench, & Richmond, 2003), “ends are those outcomes that you desire to achieve.” Ends might include the following:

Persuading your audience to make a financial contribution for you to participate in Relay for Life.
Persuading a group of homeowners that your real estate agency would best meet their needs.
Informing your fellow students about newly required university fees.

Whereas the means are the behavioral choices we make, the ends are the results of those choices.

Like intent and means, ends can be good or bad. For example, suppose a city council wants to balance the city’s annual budget. Balancing the budget may be a good end, assuming that the city has adequate tax revenues and some discretionary spending for city services. However, voters might argue that balancing the budget is a bad end if the city lacks the tax revenue and must raise taxes or cut essential city services, or both, to do so.

What are the guidelines for ethical speaking?

Steven Lucas, a well-known speech instructor, put together five helpful guidelines to ensure ethical speechmaking (Lucas, 2012, pp. 31-35).

Make sure your goals are ethically sound. Are you asking your audience to do something you yourself do not believe in, do not think is good for the audience, or would not do yourself?
Be fully prepared for each speech. Don’t cheat the audience by just winging it. If you calculate the money each person in your audience makes during the time you speak, do you want to waste that much of their time and money? As speakers we have a solemn responsibility to make that time worthwhile.
Be honest in what you say. Speechmaking rests on the assumption that words can be trusted and that people will be truthful. Without this assumption, there is no basis for communication and no reason for one person to believe anything that another person says.
Avoid name-calling and other forms of abusive language. Names leave psychological scars that last for years. Name-calling defames, demeans, or degrades. These words dehumanize people, all of whom should be treated with dignity and respect.
Put ethical principles into practice. Being ethical means behaving ethically all the time—not only when it’s convenient (Lucas, 2012, pp.34-35).

Your audience is watching you even when you are not speechmaking. If you try to be honest in your speeches, yet an audience member observes you lying to a classmate, what does that do to your credibility as an ethical speaker? Something to consider.

A Speaker’s Ethical Obligation

According to Lucas, “Name-calling and abusive language pose ethical problems in public speaking when they are used to silence opposing voices. A democratic society depends upon open expression of ideas. In the United States, all citizens have the right to join in democracy’s never-ending dialogue. As a public speaker, you have an ethical obligation to help preserve that right by avoiding tactics such as name-calling, which inherently impugn the accuracy or respectability of public statements made by groups or individual who voice opinions different from yours.

“The obligation is the same whether you are black or white, Christian or Muslim, male or female, gay or straight, liberal or conservative. A pro-union public employee who castigated everyone opposed to her ideas as an “enemy of the middle class” is unethical. A politician who labels all his adversaries “tax-and-spend liberals” is unethical. Although name-calling can be hazardous to free speech, it is still protected under the Bill of Right’s free-speech clause.

Nevertheless, it will not alter the ethical responsibility of public speakers on or off campus to avoid name-calling and other kinds of abusive language” (Lucas, 2012, pp.34-35).

Important Ethical Principles

The largest communication organization in the United States and second largest in the world created an ethical credo outlining important principles to follow if we want to be ethical communicators. Notice how they indicate that ethical speaking takes courage.

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.
We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and society.
We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.
We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

Source: National Communication Association

Applying Ethical Principles

Use reason and logical arguments. While there are cases where speakers have blatantly lied to an audience, it is more common for speakers to prove a point by exaggerating, omitting facts that weigh against their message, or distorting information. We believe that speakers build a relationship with their audiences, and that lying, exaggerating, or distorting information violates this relationship. Ultimately, a speaker will be more persuasive by using reason and logical arguments.

Choose objective sources. It is also important to be honest about where you get your information. As speakers, examine your sources and research and determine whether they are biased or have hidden agendas. For example, you are not likely to get accurate information about nonwhite individuals from a neo-Nazi website. While you may not know all your sources firsthand, you should attempt to find objective sources that do not have an overt or covert agenda that skews the argument you are making.

Don’t plagiarize. Using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism. The word “plagiarism” stems from the Latin word plagiaries, or kidnapper. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When Senator Joseph Biden was running for president of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result.

Cite your sources. Even if you are not running for president of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is important to you as a student. Many universities have policies that include dismissing students from the institution for plagiarizing academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lowering your credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing course grade or school expulsion.

Speakers tend to fall into one of three major traps regarding plagiarism.

The first trap is failing to tell the audience the source of a direct quotation.
The second trap is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech, you talk about those three types of bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing.
The third trap that speakers fall into is re-citing someone else’s sources within a speech. To explain this problem, let’s look at a brief segment from a research paper written by Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam:

“The main character on the hit Fox television show  House , Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, “It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what” (Shore & Barclay, 2005). This notion that “everybody lies” is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead (1975), the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as “completely honest.”

In this example, we see that the authors of this paragraph cited information from two external sources: Shore and Barclay and Tummer, Edgley, and Olmstead. These two groups of authors are given credit for their ideas. The authors make it clear that they did not produce the television show  House  or conduct the study that found that only 38.5 percent of statements were completely honest. Instead, these authors cited information found in two other locations. This type of citation is appropriate.

However, if a speaker read the paragraph and said the following during a speech, it would be plagiarism:

“According to Wrench DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam, in a study of 130 participants, only 38.5 percent of the responses were completely honest.”

In this case, the speaker is attributing the information cited to the authors of the paragraph, which is not accurate. If you want to cite the information within your speech, you need to read the original article by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead and cite that information yourself.

There are two main reasons we do this.

First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead really actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information.
The second reason we do not re-cite someone else’s sources within our speeches is because it’s intellectually dishonest. You owe your listeners an honest description of where the facts you are relating came from, not just the name of an author who cited those facts. It is more work to trace the original source of a fact or statistic, but by doing that extra work you can avoid this plagiarism trap.

The Difference Between Global, Patchwork, and Incremental Plagiarism

This section is adapted from The Art of Public Speaking by Stephen E Lucas.

Global plagiarism: Stealing speech entirely from a single source and passing it off as your own. Maybe you go online and find a speech, or you use the speech your spouse created for her speech class. These are both examples of global plagiarism.

Patchwork plagiarism: Stealing ideas from two or more sources and passing them off as your own. You cut and paste information from one source, then another, then another and patch them together to make your speech, but you don’t cite each source within your speech.

Incremental plagiarism: Failing to give credit for particular parts of a speech that are borrowed from other people. In global and patchwork plagiarism, the entire speech is cribbed more or less verbatim from a single source or a few sources. But incremental plagiarism occurs when you borrow particular parts or increments from other people, quotes, or phrases to make your speech, and you don’t give credit. For example:

Whenever you quote someone directly, you must attribute the words to that person.

Scientist Roberts said, “Rocks also contain remnants of their electromagnetic information.”

Whenever you summarize or paraphrase someone else’s words or ideas you must attribute it to that person.

According to historian Belford, we are on the brink of a new era.

Now you have clearly identified Roberts and Belford and given them credit for their words, rather than presenting them as your own.

Ethically, we need to talk about your captive audience.

Captive Audiences

“Captive audience doctrine posits a situation in which the listener has no choice but to hear the undesired speech. This lack of choice has a strong spatial component to it: indeed, the classic example of a captive audience is being the target of residential picketing” (William, 2003, p. 400). For example, if picketers come to your neighborhood to picket the coming of a large store chain in a residential area, their speeches, yelling and propaganda can be heard in your home. They have entered your space and it doesn’t matter that you need quiet to put your little one down for a nap or you don’t agree with the picketer’s message, your are forced to listen because they are in your space.

“Defenders of sexual harassment law argue that employees’ need to earn a living makes the workplace a context where an employee should not be forced to listen to undesired speech” (William, 2003, p.404).

“In the case of the internet, it could be argued that the inability to filter out undesirable speech creates an unacceptable dilemma for a would-be user: use the internet and subject yourself to the risk of encountering such speech, or abstain altogether from using the medium (William, 2003, p. 404).

If we take this captive audience idea to our classroom, how does it apply? We are asking you to listen to at least two of your fellow students’ speeches as part of your grade. You don’t know if you will hear something offensive or something you don’t want to hear.

Knowing that others are required to hear your speech, implies that you are responsible for creating a speech that takes your “captive audience” into account and that you do not abuse the privilege. What does this mean to you when preparing a speech?

Topic Choice

Does this mean you cannot choose a controversial topic? You may choose a controversial topic. We will walk you through how to do that and still respect your audience.

Word Choice

Does this mean you can choose any words you want? Gone are the days when “sticks and stone could break our bones but words could never hurt us.” Words carry meaning and the ability to harm and alienate our audience. We will walk you through how to compose your speech to draw your audience in so they will want to hear more.

Visual Aids

Does this mean you can choose any visual aids you want? Visual images can be powerful ways to communicate your meaning if chosen well. They can also be damaging if not chosen well. We will walk you through how to choose your visual aids.

Gestures and Non-Verbal Delivery

Does this mean you can use any non-verbal delivery you want? More than 75 percent of our communication is non-verbal. It has a powerful effect on our audience. We will help you choose your non-verbal delivery so it will enhance your speech.

Captive Audience Outside of Class

Does this mean that you can speak to a captive audience any way you want outside of class? Outside of class, speakers still have a responsibility to respect their captive-audience privilege and to speak and use it ethically. We’ll talk about how.

The First Amendment and Free Speech

Some speakers feel that they can talk about anything they want, to anyone they want, in anyway they want because their speech is protected under the First Amendment, allowing them to behave in the following ways:

Be foul mouthed.
Use destructive topics.
Use naked visual aids.
Tell their audience how much they should despise their neighbors.

These speakers feel the First Amendment gives them the freedom of any kind of speech. Do you know if this is true?

Speech Covered Under the First Amendment

Disputes over the meaning and scope of the First Amendment arise almost daily in connection with issues such as terrorism, pornography, and hate speech.

There are some kinds of speech that are not protected under the First Amendment, including the following:

Defamatory falsehoods that destroy a person’s reputation.
Threats against the life of the President.
Inciting an audience to illegal action in circumstances where the audience is likely to carry out the action.

Otherwise, the Supreme Court has held—and most ethics communication experts have agreed—that public speakers have an almost unlimited right of free expression.

While free speech allows for much individual expression, you have learned that there are ethical guidelines for public speaking. But did you know there are ethical guidelines for listening as well?

It is surprising to see that adults, in a sedate context, set a poor example and forget their ethical listening manners. See if you can hear them in the video, GOP Rep. to Obama: “You lie!”

GOP Rep to Obama You Lie! , by Communication 1020 Videso , Standard YouTube License. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sipHTEARyYo

There is a time for debate, disagreement, and protest. However, ethical listening takes into account the following:

What is appropriate for the context.
The implications of an outburst.

Lucas gives us clear information about ethical listening in his list.

Guidelines for Ethical Listening

Be courteous and attentive. The speaker has put a lot of work into the speech. It is surprising how often student audience members think it is ok to look at their phones, newspapers, work on homework, or even leave the room during a speech. These are all unethical listening behaviors and should be avoided.
Avoid prejudging the speaker. It is easy to see what a speaker is wearing, their accent, or even word choice and to prejudge their message. This doesn’t mean you need to agree with everything a speaker has to say, but you might be surprised what you will learn if you attentively listen to the full speech with an open mind.
Maintain the free and open expression of ideas. Just as the speaker needs to avoid name-calling and tactics that shut down free speech, listeners have an obligation to maintain the speaker’s right to be heard. You don’t need to agree with the speaker.

Lucas, S.E. (2014). The Art of Public Speaking (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

University of Minnesota. (2011). Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking . University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/ . CC BY-SA 4.0.

William, D. A. (2003). Captive audiences, children and the internet. Brandeis Law Journal 41, 397-415

Media References

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A K M Adam. (2018, 28 February). Picketers, Exam Schools [Image]. flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/akma/39950320734/

Bruce Mars. (no date). Woman Thinking Photo [Image]. StockSnap. https://stocksnap.io/photo/woman-thinking-MLZIHL9GLY

Caragiuss. (2013, 29 January). Ballroom dance [Image]. Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballroom_dance.jpg

Carmella Fernando. (2007, 24 September). Promise? [Image]. flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/13923263@N07/1471150324/

Communication 1020 Videso. (2021, November 9). GOP Rep to Obama You Lie! Source [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sipHTEARyYo

OpenClipart-Vectors. (2016, March 31). Angel Chess Demon [Image]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/vectors/angel-chess-demon-devil-evil-game-1294401/

Presidio of Monterey. (2014, 26 April). DLIFLC students compete in 39th Annual Mandarin Speech Contest in San Francisco [Image]. flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/presidioofmonterey/13890165109

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Tilley, E. (2005). The ethics pyramid: Making ethics unavoidable in the public relations process. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 20 , 305–320. https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/chapter/2-1-the-ethics-pyramid/#wrench_1.0-ch02_s01_f01

Public Speaking Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Billington and Shirene McKay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Communication Ethics

Øyvind Kvalnes 2
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Freedom of speech and speech responsibility are the two main concepts of communication ethics. The former addresses people’s freedom to say what they want or to remain silent, while the latter concerns the responsibilities people may have for speaking up and for the consequences of saying something or remaining silent. The traditions of consequentialist ethics and duty ethics provide conflicting normative advice about how to cope with communication dilemmas, where the alternatives can be to prioritise outcomes (the good) or conduct (the right). This chapter uses examples of decisions regarding transparency or secrecy about confidential information and i-deals at work to illustrate ethical challenges and dilemmas regarding communication.

Freedom of speech
Speech responsibility
Communication ethics
Do-good ethics
Avoid-harm ethics

You have full access to this open access chapter, Download chapter PDF

Trade union representatives in an organisation can possess confidential information that it is tempting to share with members. A new and improved pension scheme for employees may be underway and will be announced 1 month from now. Until then, information about the scheme cannot be shared with anyone. During this time, a trade union representative may encounter a member who has decided to hand in her resignation and look for work elsewhere. The representative knows that if the member withholds her resignation for 1 month, she will gain a considerable long-term financial benefit from the improved pension scheme. This is objectively speaking not a good time to resign from the organisation. The representative can take the member aside and advise her to wait another month before she hands in the resignation. However, that would be to break confidentiality and loyalty to the organisations. Should that take priority over loyalty to the member, whose financial prospects for the rest of her life will be considerably better if she postpones her resignation for 1 month?

I have discussed this situation with trade union representatives, and their responses surprisingly vary. Some claim that the obvious answer is to respect the confidentiality and say nothing about the improved pension scheme to the member. They maintain that this is just the sort of situation where the professionalism and suitability to be a trade union representative is put to the test. Emotions and impulses cannot govern one’s decisions. This representative has a particular role in workplace processes and needs to adhere to the strict norms for collaboration between employers and employee organisations. Others take the opposite view and argue that it is obvious that loyalty should lie with the individual members, and not with the organisation or employer. As a trade union representative, this person should support the weakest stakeholders, which in this case, clearly is the individual member. Information is such cases can flow discreetly, and no one will know that in this exceptional case, the representative prioritised the member’s interest over confidentiality and the organisorganisation’s interest.

The Navigation Wheel is a tool designed to aid decision-makers in situations such as these (Kvalnes and Øverenget 2012 ). It identifies six relevant concerns to consider when deciding upon a way forward (Fig. 12.1 ).

A wheel diagram of navigation with 6 relevant concerns and questions related to them. They are law, ethics, economy, reputation, morality, and identity. A question at the center reads, what do you do.

Navigation wheel

When trade union representatives reflect on the case regarding disclosing the new pension scheme, all six concerns are relevant. In the discussions I have facilitated, participants have prioritised the Identity question. What core values should an individual commit to when representing a trade union? The disagreements between them highlight different interpretations of the role and where their loyalties should lie. There is also a Morality element in their conflicting stances. When presented with the case, each representative has a moral intuition—a gut feeling—about what a trade union representative should do under such circumstances. In the ensuing discussion, participants tend to remain loyal to their initial moral intuition. On rare occasions, representatives may change their minds. With time to reflect and consider perspectives, they realise that the arguments for sharing/not sharing the information about the pension scheme with the member is stronger/weaker than they initially thought.

The Navigation Wheel builds on a particular understanding of the relation and difference between morality and ethics. Morality is defined as a set of personal and shared beliefs about right and wrong, and ethics as a tool for systematic analysis of right and wrong. The distinction corresponds to one between quick and impulsive System 1 decision-making and slow and analytical System 2 decision-making (Kahneman 2013 ). On this understanding, decisions made via moral intuition are examples of System 1 decision-making, while decisions based on ethical reflection are examples of System 2 decision-making.

With this interpretation in place, it is possible to reflect on aspects of both ways of making decisions about right and wrong. It provides a framework to analyse decision-making processes when people face dilemmas. The trade union representative may suddenly face a situation where a member is about to hand in a resignation where it is financially better to wait 1 month. There is no time to think, thus the representative will act on a moral intuition to intervene and advise the member to wait, or a moral intuition to remain silent. When given the opportunity to revisit and re-evaluate the decision later, the representative may look to confirm or disconfirm arguments that it was the right thing to do. Confirmation bias (Nickerson 1998 ; Kvalnes 2017 ; Peters 2020 ) can lead the representative to notice only information and principles that support the initial decision. With more time and information, a change of perspective is possible, but the decision-maker can also remain loyal to their previous, underinformed self and only seek out confirmation that the initial decision was the right one. The process of System 2 ethical analysis may take the form of gathering support for the System 1 moral intuition. This means that an opportunity may be lost for establishing whether the decision was the right one.

A rationale for discussing potential dilemmas in advance, in a workshop setting, or in a seminar is to make the participants less vulnerable to being governed solely by their moral intuitions when they suddenly face such a situation. They receive an opportunity to become better prepared for real-world dilemmas by thinking through the alternatives together in a psychologically safe environment. Impulsive and automated decisions may not reflect what the decision-maker values and considers morally right. Preparation through ethical reflection can make the quick decisions in real life better aligned to the decision-maker’s moral beliefs and convictions.

The communication climate for reflections on ethical dilemmas can be characterised by friendly friction and dissent, or the opposites of friendliness without friction, and in contrast, unfriendly friction. With friendly friction, people will address what they see as weaknesses and doubtful assumptions in the alternatives under scrutiny. They will add their voices to a process of seeking out the various alternatives’ strengths and weaknesses as an act of good will towards the decision-maker. They are engaged in the case, and they are making a serious effort to help the decision-maker to identify the right course of action. With friendliness without friction, the decision-maker receives uncommitted and indifferent feedback from people who primarily want to avoid conflict and dissent. They will support any idea or suggestion coming from the decision-maker without considering whether it has flaws. In contrast, with unfriendly friction, the motivation can be to mobilise any kind of argumentation that will harm and defeat the decision-maker.

Whether to speak and share information or remain silent is the pattern for dilemmas addressed within communication ethics. In line with the general definition of ethics provided above, communication ethics is the discipline of analysing what is right and wrong in the realm of communication (Kvalnes 2022 ). This philosophical discipline depends on two main concepts, each having their set of fundamental questions.

Freedom of speech: When do people have the freedom to speak and write whatever they want, including a freedom to remain silent? What are the ethical limits to the form and content of people’s expressions? To what extent can freedom of speech be limited by confidentiality agreements and other social arrangements?

Speech responsibility: When do people have a responsibility to speak up about what they observe in their social environment? In which situations do they have a moral duty to intervene verbally? To what extent are they responsible for the consequences of speaking up and of remaining silent? What happens to individual speech responsibility when individuals are part of a group where all members have a freedom to speak?

These questions suggest some of the directions that reflections on freedom of speech and speech responsibility can take. There can be many others. The former concept gets more attention than the latter, both academically and in society and organisations. Freedom of speech is often highlighted in discussions about employee rights and the rights of professionals. This freedom can be threatened when employers try to restrict employees’ participation in discourses about organisational developments. Researchers have been concerned about employers’ initiatives to control the verbal activities of employees who may want to express dissent and disagreement (Kassing 2000 ; Balkin 2018 ). There is a long tradition of considering freedom of speech as crucial for employee empowerment and autonomy (Haskins 1996 ). However, a comprehensive communication ethics for organisations also needs to account for the responsibilities that come with a freedom to express one’s ideas and concerns. Attending only to freedom of speech and not to speech responsibility creates an imbalanced communication ethics.

Returning to the trade union example, it tests the understanding of both freedom of speech and speech responsibility. What can a trade union representative say in a situation where a member is about to make a financially unsound decision by handing in a resignation 1 month before a new pension scheme comes into effect? One perspective is that the case illustrates the limits to freedom of speech. A representative cannot break a confidentiality agreement, even when it is out of commendable concern for a member. The opposite view can be to highlight freedom of speech and claim that it has priority over loyalty to one’s organisation and the norms of collaboration between employers and employee organisations. A representative can appeal speech responsibility to justify the alternative of interfering to make the member aware of the new pension scheme underway.

Normative ethics contains two main traditions that provide conflicting views in a range of dilemmas and choices. Consequentialist ethics prioritises the outcome (the good) over conduct (the right), while duty ethics does the opposite, claiming that the way people act (the right) is more important than how things turn out (the good) (Kvalnes 2019 ). The two traditions provide different advice about what a person should do in situations where the alternatives are to speak up or to remain silent, or there is a choice between different ways of expressing one’s views.

A consequentialist communication ethics will build its input on considerations about probable outcomes. The trade union representative should inform the member about the new pension scheme, if that alternative is likely to provide the best overall outcome. If the conversation can remain a secret between them, the positive financial consequences for the member can be sufficient to make it right to go for that initiative. In contrast, if it is likely that the confidential information will spread and create difficulties for the organisation and the representative who has broken the promise to keep the plan secret, that fuels a consequentialist rejection of the alternative of sharing the information. For a duty ethical communication ethics, identifying what is the right thing to do does not depend on considerations about likely outcomes. Instead, it rests on concerns about keeping promises and respecting confidentiality. If an individual has reached an agreement within a group about not sharing information before a particular date, then they should remain committed to that agreement and not say anything, even to a person whose situation would be greatly improved if that individual were to do so.

A core element more or less explicitly shared by consequentialist ethics and duty ethics is the principle of equality (Kvalnes 2019 ). It states that equal cases should be treated equally. A difference in treatment between two cases requires pointing to a morally relevant difference between them. It is a philosophical principle inherited from Aristotle’s writings more than 2000 years ago, but small children apply and appeal to it long before they have learned to read and write. They can have a strong sense of fairness and expect that any differential treatment can be justified by pointing to a relevant difference. Siblings can bicker about what counts as relevant differences when parents make decisions about distributing advantages and disadvantages. In organisations, leaders are under similar pressure to justify and explain why some employees receive higher salaries and better working conditions than others do, and why some must take the most demanding shifts. So-called i-deals, or idiosyncratic deals, that employees can negotiate for themselves open for individual differences in flexibility, compensation, and opportunities for further education (Rousseau 2015 ). It makes good sense to allow i-deals and not to treat everyone in a standardised manner, but they can create unrest unless the differences in treatment are properly justified.

The principle of equality is highly relevant for communication ethics, and the level of openness about i-deals can serve as an example. Leaders and employees can face an ethical dilemma about whether to keep i-deals transparent or secret. The level of openness can be about the existence of the deal and about its rationale and specific content. It is possible to be transparent about how an employee has an i-deal without explicating why and what specifically constitutes it. It seems unreasonable to operate with one general and absolute norm regarding whether one should be transparent about i-deals or keep them secret. What one should communicate about them depends on each case’s unique circumstances.

The ethical dimensions of establishing and communicating about i-deals emerge as a significant research topic. In her doctoral thesis, Raets ( 2022 ) started important work to address and clarify the ethics of i-deals, introducing the idea that transparency should be the prima facie norm for communication about them. The normative hypothesis is that one should be open about i-deals, but that there may be exceptional cases where the situation’s morally relevant features call for secrecy. Privacy considerations are among those that can count in favour of secrecy. A similar openness to exception can apply to the trade union example. The norm can be that one should keep confidential information secret, but there can be room for exceptions, such as when a person is about to make a financially unsound decision, and an individual can intervene and avoid the negative outcome by sharing the confidential information. However, the principle of equality can also serve as a platform for powerful criticism of the decision of a trade union representative who chooses to inform one member about the pension scheme. The representative happened to meet this one member, but other members may have had a similar interest in knowing about the pension scheme before publication. A chance encounter does not seem to provide a strong reason for ethical differentiation.

Chapter 2 introduced the concept of critical quality moments to describe situations where a communication climate is tested. Will anyone intervene to correct the tone from the conductor, halt the execution of faulty engineering plans, or suggest a better substitution to the football coach? Decision-making in such situations can have ethical implications. As an eyewitness to a dramatic event at work, an employee can decide whether to speak up and take an initiative to stop a causal chain of events that will likely lead to a negative outcome. The situation can also be one where a supportive verbal initiative can give a colleague an uplifting experience. If freedom of speech were the only element of communication ethics, the decision-maker would only need to consider whether to use that freedom to say something or to remain silent. However, critical quality moments can also provide the decision-maker with a responsibility to become involved. Speech responsibility indicates that an individual should not remain a passive bystander and justify it by appealing to their freedom to speak or not. Here, they are in a position where they have the power either to prevent a negative outcome or to produce a positive one. That can create a responsibility to become verbally involved. Appeals to freedom of speech are not sufficient to justify silence.

One final distinction is helpful in obtaining an overview of the elements of communication ethics. The alternatives of speaking up and remaining silent can prevent negative outcomes and produce positive ones, as captured in an ethics for avoiding harm and an ethics for doing good (Table 12.1 ).

Some have described this distinction as one between prescriptive and proscriptive ethics (Janoff-Bulman et al. 2009 ). The ethics of avoiding harm includes not just concerns about intervening to stop harm to others but also concerns about using aggressive and hurtful language in communication with others. So-called hate speech tests the limits of freedom of speech (Howard 2019 ). Again, if freedom of speech were the only element of communication ethics, it would be difficult to argue against hate speech. With a concept of speech responsibility in place, there are boundaries for what people can justifiably say to or about other people. Avoid-harm ethics also gives weight to concerns about how words and utterances can negatively affect others.

In this chapter, I have shown that a balanced communication ethics needs to highlight freedom of speech as well as speech responsibility. Employees should not only have a freedom to express their views or remain silent but also have some form of responsibility for the outcomes of their decision to speak or not. The Navigation Wheel can serve as a tool to analyse situations where individuals can be in doubt about what to do. It identifies law, identity, morality, reputation, economy, and ethics as six aspects that can be necessary to take into account when reasoning about the alternatives. Consequentialist ethics and duty ethics emphasise different dimensions of human relations and can provide conflicting answers in communication dilemmas. Both acknowledge the principle of equality but can differ on what they consider a situation’s morally relevant features. The distinction between avoid-harm ethics and do-good ethics can serve to highlight what is at stake in decisions about speaking up or remaining silent, and about which words individuals can justifiably use in communication with others.

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3 Chapter 3: Ethics in Public Speaking

The materials below are attributed fully to the free online Open Education Resource, Exploring Public Speaking: The Free Dalton State College Public Speaking Textbook, 4th Edition (Chapter 11). Another later chapter also discusses topics of plagiarism and AI use.

Chapter 3 Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, the student will be able to:

Explain the legal, cultural, philosophical, and social origins of ethics in public speaking
Explain the difference between plagiarism and correct appropriation of source materials
Understand the value of ethics in building a solid reputation as a speaker
Correctly use source material in a presentation

Chapter Preview

3.1 – sources of ethical stances on communication and public speaking, 3.2 – credibility and ethics, 3.3 – plagiarism.

As discussed in Chapter 1, there are many reasons to take a public speaking course. Among its numerous benefits, a public speaking course will create more self-confidence; the creation of good arguments will build your critical thinking and research skills; and you will meet new people in your class in a different way and be exposed to their ideas . Also, the course will prepare you for presentations you will be expected to give in later classes (and believe us, there will be many), in your civic and personal life, and for your eventual career.

Another very important reason to take a public speaking course such as this one goes beyond these immediate personal benefits. Public speaking, or “rhetoric” as it was originally called, has long been considered a method in Western culture of building community, facilitating self-government, sharing important ideas, and creating policies. In fact, these are the reasons the ancient Athenian Greeks emphasized that all citizens should be educated in rhetoric: so that they could take part in civil society. Aristotle said that if a man was expected to defend himself physically, he should also be able to defend his ideas rhetorically, that is, t hrough persuasive public speaking:

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. (Rhetoric, Book I, p. 6).

Therefore, public speaking has a social as well as a personal purpose and function. For that reason, the ethics of public speaking and communication in general should be addressed in any study of public speaking. A public speaker, whether delivering a speech in a classroom, board room, civic meeting, or in any other venue must uphold certain ethical standards. These standards will allow the audience to make informed choices, to uphold credibility as a source of information, and to avoid repercussions of bad ethical choices.

To this end, this chapter will deal with the subject of ethics. Ethics refers to the branch of philosophy that involves determinations of what is right and moral . On a personal level , it is your own standard of what you should and should not do in the various situations or in all situations. Although ethics are based on personal decisions and values, they are also influenced by factors outside of you. Over the next few pages, we will look at various ways ethics, particularly ethics related to speech, have been thought about. In reading, you should seek to determine how you would explain your own ethical standard for communication. A long with being able to articulate what you would not do, you should have an appreciation for why doing the right thing is important to you.

the branch of philosophy that involves determinations of what is right and moral

One of “right things” and most important ways that we speak ethically is to use material from others correctly. Occasionally we hear in the news media about a political speaker who uses the words of other speakers without attribution or of scholars who use pages out of another scholar’s work without consent or citation. Usually the discussion of plagiarism stays within the community where it occurred, but there is still damage done to the “borrower’s” reputation as an ethical person and scholar.

Why does it matter if a speaker or writer commits plagiarism? Why and how do we judge a speaker as ethical? Why, for example, do we value originality and correct citation of sources in public life as well as the academic world, especially in the United States? These are not new questions, and some of the answers lie in age-old philosophies of communication.

Legal Origins of Ethics in Public Speaking

The First Amendment to the Constitution is one of the most cherished and debated in the Bill of Rights. “Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech . . . or of the press” has been discussed in many contexts for over two hundred and thirty years. Thomas Emerson (1970), a Constitutional scholar and Yale Law Professor, asserted that freedom of expression is more than just a right. It is a necessity for having the kind of society we want as Americans. Although we think of “freedom of the press” today as referring to mass media and journalism, “press” here refers to publishing of books, magazines, or pamphlets by anyone.

One of the bases of the First Amendment is an essay written by John Milton in the 1600s, Aereopagitica. This essay on freedom of speech is where the phrases “free marketplace of ideas” and “truth will arise from debate of all ideas” originated. Milton lived in a time when the King of England or Parliament could “censor” published material or speakers, either by keeping it from being published and distributed (later called “prior restraint”), by destroying the publications afterward, or by punishing the producers of the content, sometimes harshly .

In the twentieth century, “freedom of speech” has been generalized into a freedom of expression. This was especially true in the important Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment in the 1950s through 1970s. According to Emerson (1970), such expression is important to our development as human beings individually and in a democracy. Thanks to these historical precedents, we can express ourselves freely in our communities and classrooms, keeping in mind ethical responsibilities to present serious, honest, factual, and well-supported speeches as a matter of respect to your listeners . Additionally, although the First Amendment to the Constitution is usually interpreted by the Supreme Court and lower courts to mean almost no restrictions on freedom of expression, there are a few instances in which the government is held to have a “compelling interest” in controlling, stopping, or preventing certain types of free expression.

One of these instances has to do with threats on the life of the President of the United States, although threats of physical harm against anyone might also result in penalties . Another instance of restrictions on freedom of expression is in those cases where the speaker has the opportunity and means and likelihood of inciting an audience to violence (this is the old “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre” example). The government has also allowed local governments to have reasonable requirements to avoid mobs or public danger or to uphold community standards, such as permits for parades or limiting how many people can meet in a certain size of building. “Reasonable” is sometimes a matter of debate, as the extensive history of Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment shows.

An other type of restriction on freedom of speech is defamatory speech , which is defined in the United States as:

a false statement of fact that damages a person’s character, fame or reputation . It must be a false statement of fact; statements of opinion, however insulting they may be, cannot be defamation under U.S. law. Under U.S. defamation law, there are different standards for public officials [and public figures] and private individuals. (U.S. Department of State, 2013)

Defamatory Speech

a false statement of fact that damages a person’s character, fame, or reputation

With the Internet and social media, these issues become more complicated, of course. In the past someone could express himself or herself only in limited ways: standing on a street corner, attending a public meeting, putting the words on paper and distributing them, or maybe getting on radio or television (if allowed or if wealthy). Today, almost anyone with a laptop, a webcam, an ISP, and technical know-how can be as powerful in getting a message to the masses as someone owning a newspaper one hundred years ago. While most people use technology and the Internet for fun, profit, or self-expression, some use it for hurt—bullying, defamation, even spreading terrorism. The judicial system is trying to keep up with the challenges that the digital age brings to protecting free expression while sheltering us from the negative consequences of some forms of free expression.

Cultural and Religious Origins of Ethics in Communication

It is hard to separate life aspects such as legal, cultural, religious, and social. Many Americans would say they hold to the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” The Golden Rule is seen as a positive expression of fairness, equity, and trust. Even if there is no legal ruling hanging over us, we expect honest communication and return it. The Golden Rule is related to and a step beyond the “Law of Reciprocity” that determines so much of our social interaction. We also value straightforwardness; respect for the individual’s freedom of choice; getting access to full information; consistency between action and words; taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes (sometimes necessitating an apology and accepting consequences) ; and protection of privacy . We fear public humiliation and do not want to violate community norms. We also usually view ourselves as honest and ethical people .

Most religions teach the value of truthfulness and that lying intentionally is wrong. The Books of Proverbs, the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law, and Jesus Christ’s teaching all point to the immorality of lying and the destruction lying brings personally and communally. Quranic teaching condemns lying, and Buddhism teaches that followers should not deliberately lie. Individuals internalize the norms of their cultures and religions and makes them work for him or her. Sometimes we try to find justification for times when we are untruthful, such as to smooth over relationships and say things that serve as “social lubrication” (Floyd, 2017). Upbringing and family teachings, religious values, experiences, peers, and just plain old “gut reaction” as well as understanding of the First Amendment contribute to our ethical behavior

Philosophers and Communication Ethics

Philosophers throughout history have also written on the subject of communication and public speaking ethics. In fact, one of the first philosophers, Plato , objected to the way rhetoric was practiced in his day, because “it made the worse case appear the better.” In other words, the professional public speakers, who could be hired to defend someone in court or the assembly, knew and used techniques that could deceive audiences and turn them from truth . Aristotle responded to this concern from his teacher Plato in his work, Rhetoric . Later, Quintilian, a Roman teacher of rhetoric, wrote that rhetoric was “the good man speaking well, ” meaning the speaker must meet the Roman Republic’s definition of a virtuous man.

In more modern times, English philosophers John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) introduced utilitarianism, which presents the ethic of “The greatest good for the greatest number;” that is, whatever benefits the most people is right . A related philosophy, pragmatism , was first discussed by Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914). Pragmatists judge actions by their practical consequences. Some ethicists would differ with the pragmatic position, claiming it supports an “ends justify the means” philosophy. When we say “the ends justify the means,” we are saying that a generally unethical action (intentional misstatement of truth, withholding information, or taking any someone’s freedom of choice) is ethical as long as something good comes from it. Many scholars of ethical communication would disagree with the “ends justify the means” philosophy.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed what was been called the Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.” To paraphrase, any behavior we engage in should be what we think everyone else on the planet should do ethically . I n the twentieth century, J ean-Paul Sartre and others called “existentialists” emphasized that the ability and necessity to freely choose our actions is what makes us human, but we are accountable for all our choices. Jurgen Habermas, a more recent scholar, emphasizes the “equal opportunity for participation” of the communication partners (Johannessen, Valde, & Whedbe, 2008).

This very brief overview of ethics in general and in communication specifically is designed to let you know that the best minds have grappled with what is right and wrong when it comes to expression. But what is the practical application? We believe it is adherence to the factual truth and respect for your audience: in this case, your classmates, peers, and your instructor. An individual might be guided by the Categorical Imperative approach, the pragmatic philosophy, the Judeo-Christian view of “thou shalt not lie” and “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), the Golden Rule, freedom with accountability, or some other view. However, respect for your audience means that you will do your best to present factual, well-documented information designed to improve their lives and help them make informed, intelligent decisions with it .

In addition to respect for the humanity, intelligence, and dignity of your audience, you should be conscious of two other aspects related to ethics of communication: credibility and plagiarism .

When Aristotle used the term ethos in the 5th century B.C.E. to describe one of the means of persuasion, he defined it as the “wisdom, sagacity, and character of the rhetor” (see Chapter 13 for more coverage of ethos and Aristotle’s other artistic proofs). Modern scholars of communication and persuasion speak more about “ credibility ” as an attitude the audience has toward the speaker, based on both reality and perception , rather than an innate trait of the speaker . Audience members trust the speaker to varying degrees, based on the evidence and knowledge they have about the speaker and how that lines up with certain factors:

Similarity: does the speaker have experiences, values, and beliefs in common with the audience? Can the audience relate to the speaker bec ause of these commonalities?
Character: does the speaker, in word and action, in the speech and in everyday life, show honesty and integrity?
Competence: does the speaker show that he/she has expertise and sound knowledge about the topic, especially through firsthand experience? And does the speaker show competence in his/her ability to communicate that expertise?
Good will: does the audience perceive the speaker to have ethical intentions toward the audience?

In addition to these key areas will be the audience’s perceptions, o r even gut feelings, about more intangible characteristics of the speaker, such as appearance, friendliness, sense of humor, likability, appearance, poise, and communication ability. Many of these traits are conveyed through nonverbal aspects, such as facial expression, eye contact, good posture, and appropriate gestures (see Chapter 11 on Delivery).

Understandably, the same speaker will have a different level of credibility with different audiences. For example, in regard to presidential campaigns, it is interesting to listen to how different people respond to and “trust” different candidates. Donald Trump entered the presidential race as a Republican nominee and quickly became a frontrunner in many of the early polls and primaries, eventually winning the Electoral College votes, to the surprise of many. Those who voted for him often stated that they value his candor and willingness to say what he thinks because they perceive that as honest and different from other politicians. Others think he makes unwise and thoughtless statements, and they see that as a lack of competence and demeanor to be the national leader. Donald Trump is the same person, but different audiences respond to his behavior and statements in divergent ways.

The point is that character and competence are both valued by those who trust and those who distrust President Trump and the audience’s perceptions contribute to his credibility (or lack of it). However, these groups express their values in different ways. When trying to develop your own credibility as a speaker with an audience, you have to keep in mind all four of the factors listed above. To portray oneself as “similar” to the audience but to do so deceptively will not contribute to credibility in the long run. To only pretend to have good will and want the best for the audience will also have a short-term effect. And to intentionally misrepresent your background, such as experience and credentials, is clearly unethical.

Not only does a speaker’s level of credibility change or vary from audience to audience, it is also likely to change even during the presentation. These changes in credibility have been labeled as initial, derived, and terminal credibility .

Initial credibility is, as you would imagine, the speaker’s credibility at the beginning of or even before the speech. T here are a number of factors that would contribute to the initial credibility, even such matters as the “recommendation” of the person who introduces the speaker to the audience. Any knowledge the audience has of the speaker prior to the speech adds to the initial credibility. The initial credibility is important, of course, because it will influence the receptivity of the audience or how well they will listen and be open to the speaker’s ideas. Initial credibility can be influenced also by the perception that the speaker is not well dressed, prepared, or confident at the very beginning. Initial credibility is why how you walk to the lectern and give your introduction matter.

Initial Credibility

A speaker’s credibility at the beginning of or even before the speech

Derived credibility is how the audience members judge the speaker’s credibility and trustworthiness throughout the process of the speech, which also can range from point to point in the speech. P erhaps you have seen those videos on a news program that show a political speaker on one pane of the video and a graph of the audience’s response in real time to the speaker’s message, usually noted as “approval rating” as the politician speaks . This could be based on the perception of the speaker’s presentation style (delivery), language, specific opinions or viewpoints on subjects, open-mindedness, honesty, and other factors. T he point of the derived credibility is that credibility is an active concept that is always changing.

Derived Credibility

a speaker’s credibility and trustworthiness (as judged by the audience members) throughout the process of the speech, which also can range from point to point in the speech

Finally, terminal credibility is, as you would think, credibility at the end of the speech. The obvious importance of terminal credibility is that it would factor into the audience’s final decision about what to do with the information, arguments, or appeals of the speaker – in other words, his or her persuasiveness . It would also determine whether the audience would listen to the speaker again in the future. The terminal credibility can be seen as a result of the initial and derived credibility.

Terminal Credibility

a speaker’s credibility at the end of the speech

Terminal credibility may end up being lower than the initial credibility, but the goal of any speaker should be to have higher terminal credibility . From an ethics standpoint, of course, credibility should not be enhanced by being untruthful with an audience, by misrepresenting one’s viewpoint to please an audience, or by “pandering” to an audience (flattering them). One of the primary attributes of credibility at any stage should be transparency and honesty with the audience .

In conclusion, speaker credibility does not exist alone. It is supported by a number of factors, including Aristotle’s other two traditional forms of persuasion, logos (logic, evidence, good reasoning, lack of fallacious arguments) and pathos (personal and emotional appeals) .

Although there are many ways that you could undermine your ethical stance before an audience, the one that stands out and is committed most commonly in academic contexts is plagiarism . A dictionary definition of plagiarism would be “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). According to the student help website Plagiarism.org, sponsored by WriteCheck, plagiarism is often thought of as “copying another’s work or borrowing someone else’s original ideas” (“What is Plagiarism?”, 2014). However, this source goes on to say that the common definition may mislead some people. Plagiarism also includes:

the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person

Turning in someone else’s work as your own;
Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit;
Failing to put quotation marks around an exact quotation correctly;
Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation;
Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit;
Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.

Plagiarism exists outside of the classroom and is a temptation in business, creative endeavors, and politics. However, in the classroom, your instructor will probably take the most immediate action if he or she discovers your plagiarism either from personal experience or through using plagiarism detection (or what is also called “originality checking”) software . Many learning management systems, perhaps such as the one used at your institution, now have a plagiarism detection program embedded in the function where you submit assignments.

In the business or professional world, plagiarism is never tolerated because using original work without permission (which usually includes paying fees to the author or artist) can end in serious legal action. The Internet has made plagiarism easier and thus increased the student’s responsibility to know how to cite and use source material correctly.

Types of Plagiarism

In our long experience of teaching, we have encountered many instances of students presenting work they claim to be original and their own when it is not. We have also seen that students often do not intend to plagiarize but, due to poor training in high school, still are committing an act that could result in a failing grade or worse. Generally, t here are three levels of plagiarism: stealing, sneaking, and borrowing . Sometimes these types of plagiarism are intentional, and sometimes they occur unintentionally (you may not know you are plagiarizing). However, as everyone knows, “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking it.” So let’s familiarize you with how plagiarism occurs in order to prevent it from happening.

There is a saying in academia: “ If you steal from one source, that is plagiarism; if you steal from twelve, that is scholarship.” Whoever originated this saying may have intended for it to be humorous, but it is a misrepresentation of both plagiarism and scholarship.

Most colleges and universities have a policy that penalizes or forbids “self-plagiarism.” This means that you can’t use a paper or outline that you presented in another class a second time. You may think, “How can this be plagiarism or wrong if I wrote both and in my work I cited sources correctly?” The main reason is that by submitting it to your instructor, you are still claiming it is original, first-time work for the assignment in that particular class. Your instructor may not mind if you use some of the same sources from the first time it was submitted, but he or she expects you to follow the instructions for the assignment and prepare an original assignment. In a sense, this situation is also a case of unfairness, since the other students do not have the advantage of having written the paper or outline already.

Another issue that often comes up with students happens when two or more students, perhaps in the same section or different sections of the same course and same instructor, submit the same assignment. When confronted, the student say, “We worked on it together.” If your instructor wants you to work collaboratively, he or she will make that clear. Otherwise, do not do this–the situation usually ends quite badly for students.

In “sneaking plagiarism,” instead of taking work as a whole from another source, the student will copy two out of every three sentences and mix them up so they don’t appear in the same order as in the original work. Perhaps the student will add a fresh introduction, a personal example or two, and an original conclusion. This “sneaky” plagiarism is easy today due to the Internet and the word processing functions of cutting and pasting.

In fact, many students do not see this as the same thing as stealing because they think “I did some research, I looked some stuff up, and I added some of my own work.” Unfortunately, this approach is only marginally better than stealing and will probably end up in the same penalties as the first type of plagiarism. Why? Because no source has been credited, and the student has “misappropriated” the expression of the ideas as well as the ideas themselves. Interestingly, this type of plagiarism can lead to copyright violation if the work with the plagiarism is published.

Most of the time students do not have to worry about copyright violation when they correctly use and cite material from a source. This is because in academic environments, “fair use” is the rule . In short, you are not making any money from using the copyrighted material, such as from a published book. You are only using it for learning purposes and not to make money, so “quoting” (using verbatim) with proper citation a small amount of the material is acceptable for a college class.

If, however, you were going to try to publish and sell an article or book and “borrowed” a large section of material without specifically obtaining permission from the original author, you would be guilty of copyright violation and by extension make your organization or company also guilty. When you enter your career field, the “fair use” principle no longer applies and you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holder and pay fees to use all or portions of a work. For more information on this very important and often misunderstood subject, visit the Creative Commons website and the Library of Congress.

One area in speeches where students are not careful about citing is on their presentational slides. If a graphic or photo is borrowed from a website (that is, you did not design it), there should be a citation in small letters on the slide. The same would be true of borrowed quotations, data, and ideas. Students also like to put their “works cited” or “references” on the last slide, but this really does not help the audience or get around the possibility of plagiarism .

The third type of plagiarism is “borrowing.” In this case, the student is not stealing wholesale. He or she may actually even give credit for the material, either correctly or incorrectly. He might say, “According to the official website of . . .” or “As found in an article in the Journal of Psychology , Dr. John Smith wrote . . .” Sounds good, right? Well, yes and no. It depends on whether the student has borrowed in a “sneaky way” ( cutting and pasting passages together but this time indicating where the sections came from ) or if the student is using the ideas but not the exact wording. In other words, h as t he student adequately, correctly, and honestly paraphrased or summarized the borrowed material, or just “strung the sources together” with some “according to’s”?

Students often are puzzled about what and when to cite borrowed material from sources. At this point, your instructor may have specific instructions, and you should always follow those first. However, in most cases you can go by the “repeated information” rule. If you are doing research and access ten sources, and over half of them have the same piece of information (usually a historical or scientific fact or statistic), you can assume this is “common knowledge.” That is, it is common to anyone who knows anything about the subject, and then you do not have to have a citation. If you find a piece of information in one source only, it probably represents the original research or viewpoint of that writer, and should be cited clearly. On the other hand, there are exceptions. An often-cited or used piece of information has an original source, such as a government agency, and you would be better off to find the original source and cite that. Secondly, citing sources adds to your credibility as a prepared speaker. Again, your instructor’s directions on what and how much your cite bear upon this advice. Generally, it is better to err on the side of citing more than less.

Ethically Crediting Sources

In using source material correctly, a speaker does three things:

A speech is quite different. Saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” really does very little for the audience. They can’t turn to the back of the paper. They don’t have a way, other than oral communication, to understand the type of information being cited, how recent it is, the credibility of the author you are citing and why you think he or she is a valid source, or the title of the work . It is necessary in a speech to give more complete information that would help the audience understand its value. The page number, the publishing company, and city it was published in are probably not important, but what is important is whether it is a website, a scholarly article, or a book; whether it was written in 1950 or 2010; and what is the position, background, or credentials of the source.

So, instead of “According to Jones, p. 78,” a better approach would be,

“ According to Dr. Samuel Jones, Head of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University, in a 2010 article in a prestigious medical journal…”

“In her 2012 book, The Iraq War in Context , historian Mary Smith of the University of Georgia states that…”

“In consulting the website for the American Humane Society, I found these statistics about animal abuse compiled by the Society in 2012…”

The speaker should take special care to use information that is in context and relevant . This step takes more critical thinking skills. For example, it is often easy to misinterpret statistical information (more on that in Chapter 7), or to take a quotation from an expert in one field and apply it to another field. It is also important to label facts as facts and opinions as opinions, especially when dealing with controversial subjects . In addition, be sure you understand the material you are citing before using it. If you are unsure of any words, look their definitions up so you are sure to be using the material as it is intended. Finally, it is important that you understand the type of publication or source you are using, for example, a scholarly publication in contrast to a journalistic one.
The speaker should phrase or summarize the ideas of the source into his or her own words. Paraphrasing, which is putting the words and ideas of others into one’s own authentic or personal language, is often misunderstood by students . Your instructor may walk you through an exercise to help your class understand that paraphrasing is not changing 10% of the words in a long quotation (such as two or three out of twenty) but still keeping most of the vocabulary and word order (called syntax ) of the source. You should compose the information in your own “voice” or way of expressing yourself. In fact, you would be better off to think in terms of summarizing your source material rather than paraphrasing. For one thing, you will be less likely to use too much of the original and therefore be skirting the edge of plagiarism. Secondly, you will usually want to put the main arguments of a source in your own words and make it shorter.

Here is an example of an original source and three possible ways to deal with it.

Original information, posted on CNN.com website, October 31, 2015:

“The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year. More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said. The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retro-active, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%, the commission said. Early release will be a challenge for the inmates as well as the judicial bureaucracy” (Casarez, 2015).

With that as our original source, which of the following is truly paraphrasing?

The CNN News website says the federal government is releasing 40,000 felons from prison in the next few years.

According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015, the federal government’s Sentencing Commission is beginning to release prisoners in November based on a decision made in 2014. That decision was to make maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders shorter by an average of 18%. Over the next several years over 40,000 federal felons could be let go. However, this policy change to early release will not be easy for the justice system or those released.

The largest release ever of federal inmates will take place in early November. At first 6,600 inmates will be released, and then over 16,000 over the first year. The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it could release over 40,000 federal felons over the upcoming years because the sentencing commission decided a year ago to lessen maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make this happen for those already in jail. When the Sentencing Commission says that when it made that decision, the sentences were reduced an average of 18%. Early release will be a challenge for the felons as well as the judicial system. This came from a story on CNN News website in later October 2015.

If you chose the second citation, you would be correct. The first version does not really interpret the original statement correctly, and the third choice imitates the original almost entirely. Choice 2, on the other hand, is in completely different language and identifies the source of the information clearly and at the beginning.

This exercises may raise the question, “Should I always paraphrase or summarize rather than directly quote a source?” There are times when it is appropriate to use a source’s exact wording, but quoting a source exactly should be done sparingly—sort of like using hot sauce! You should have a good reason for it, such as that the source is highly respected, has said the idea in a compelling way, or the material is well known and others would recognize it. If you do, you should make it clear you are quoting them exactly by the way you introduce and end the borrowed material.

As mentioned before, students often have not been trained to use source material correctly and plagiarize unintentionally. But like the old saying goes, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” You will still be held accountable whether you understand or not, so now, in your early college career, is the time you should learn to cite source material correctly in oral and written communication.

Something to Think About

In Appendix B you will find more information about plagiarism.

After reading about ethics in communication, what do you think the most important consideration in ethical speaking? What is the second? The third? Could the first, second, and third ever come into conflict?

Why do you think it is so hard for students to learn to cite sources appropriately?

The following exercise might be helpful for you to develop an understanding of orally citing your sources.

Choose one of your sources for an upcoming speech for this exercise. On a sheet of paper, answer these 9 questions.

Is this information you found in a unique source, or information that was repeated in all or most of your sources? (This may bear upon whether you need to cite the information or not.)
Who is the original author or “speaker” of this quotation or material?
What is the title of source?
Is it a primary or secondary source? Is the writer quoting someone else (secondary) or is the author the one who discovered the knowledge/information? If the source is secondary, who is being quoted or cited originally?
What do you know about the source of the citation? Is she/he an expert, such as a scientist, doctor, government official, college professor, etc?
Where did you find the article? In what journal or magazine, on what website, in what book?
If a website, who sponsors the website (what organization, government, company)?
When was this information published? What is the date on it?
Are you repeating the source’s words exactly or just abstracting (summarizing) what was said? Which would be better, in this case?

If you had to pick 5 of the 7 above to put in your speech, which would you use, based on the three criteria of 1. Audience can find it 2. It makes you look more credible, and 3. It is ethical? Put a star by them.

If you had to pick 4 of the 7, which one would you take out from the previous question? (Cross it out)

It is not necessary to say all of this information, but most of it should be included in the citation. This is how a speech citation is different from a paper. The audience does not have access to this information unless you say it.

Now, write how you would cite this source in the speech. Some stem phrases would be “According to . . .” “In the article. . .” “On a webpage entitled . . .” “On the website for the . . . . organization. . .” “In my interview with Dr. Sam Smith, who is . . . .”

Compare with classmates.

Jennifer has an informative speech due for Dr. MacKenzie’s class. It is about why the gold standard is no longer used in American currency. She chose the subject because she had to write a paper about it in American history class. What should Jennifer consider in how she uses sources?

Jennifer’s friend Beth approaches her about having to give an informative speech for Professor Daniels’ class. Beth confesses she has been having personal problems and needs help, and she asks Jennifer to let her use some of her outline for Dr. MacKenzie’s class. What would be the best course of action for Jennifer?

CHAPTER Three ATTRIBUTION:

Manley, J. A., & Rhodes, K. (2020). Exploring Public Speaking: The Free Dalton State College Public Speaking Textbook, 4th Edition. Manifold. Retrieved from https://alg.manifoldapp.org/read/exploring-public-speaking-the-free-dalton-state-college-public-speaking-textbook-4th-edition/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Barbara G. Tucker (Editor and Primary Author)

As chair of the Department of Communication at Dalton State College, Dr. Tucker oversees programs in communication, general studies, music, theatre, and interdisciplinary studies. She is a Professor of Communication and has worked in higher education for over 40 years. She lives in Ringgold, Georgia, with her husband; they have one son. She is a novelist and playwright. Her research areas are the basic course, open educational resources, historical perspectives on rhetoric, and gratitude.

Matthew LeHew (Editor)

As Assistant Professor at Dalton State College, Matthew LeHew teaches courses in public relations, integrated marketing communication, film studies, and video production. His research interests include various areas of media studies, especially examination of virtual communities for online games. He is currently writing his dissertation for the Ph.D. in Communication (Media and Society track) at Georgia State University. He lives in Marietta, Georgia with his wife, son, and two dogs.

The Public Speaking Resource Project Copyright © 2018 by Lori Halverson-Wente and Mark Halverson-Wente is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Art of Ethical Presentations: Conscious Communication

Shahid shahmiri.

The art of presenting has transcended beyond merely sharing information to embracing the principles of ethical presentations and conscious communication.

Ethical presentations, defined by their commitment to honesty, integrity, and respect for the audience’s diversity, have become imperative for building trust and credibility.

Coupled with conscious communication – a mindful approach that prioritizes understanding and respecting the audience’s perspective – these concepts are reshaping how we interact with our audiences.

With statistics indicating that visually-aided presentations can increase retention by up to 55%, and the average attention span dwindling, it’s clear that the need for concise, engaging, and ethically constructed presentations is more crucial than ever.

This blog post aims to explore these pivotal aspects, offering insights into how they influence and enhance the impact of our presentations in a meaningful and responsible way.

Understanding Ethical Presentations

When we talk about ethical presentations, we’re delving into a realm where the core principles of ethical communication play a pivotal role.

These principles include honesty, where information is accurate without any intent to deceive; integrity, ensuring that the presenter is consistent and reliable in their message; respect, which involves acknowledging and valuing the diversity of the audience; and fairness, which means presenting all sides of an argument or topic without bias.

Adhering to these principles is not just a moral obligation but a strategic approach to effective communication. It’s about creating a space where the audience feels valued, informed, and respected.

In the context of presentations, this translates to a careful selection of content, a balanced approach to controversial topics, and a commitment to transparency in all aspects of the presentation .

The impact of ethical presentations on audience perception cannot be overstated. When audiences recognize that a presenter is committed to ethical communication, it builds a foundation of trust and credibility.

This trust is crucial, as it influences how the audience receives and perceives the message. Ethical presentations can lead to a more engaged and receptive audience, one that is more likely to consider the message thoughtfully and seriously.

On the flip side, unethical presenting practices can severely damage this perception. Examples of such practices include presenting misleading or false information and using manipulative tactics to sway the audience.

The Pillars of Conscious Communication

Conscious communication in dynamic presentations is the fundamental pillars of transparency and authenticity. This approach requires presenters to be genuine in their delivery, ensuring that their message is clear, straightforward, and free from hidden agendas.

Transparency in this context means being open about the sources of information, the purpose of the video presentation , and any potential biases or limitations.

Authenticity, on the other hand, is about presenting in a way that is true to one’s character and values, while also being sensitive to the subject matter and the audience’s expectations.

This combination of transparency and authenticity helps in establishing a strong connection with the audience, making the presentation not just a transfer of information, but a meaningful exchange that is both credible and relatable.

Equally important is the respect for diverse perspectives and cultures, which is a cornerstone of effective conscious communication.

This respect manifests in various ways, from the careful selection of language that is inclusive and non-offensive, to the incorporation of examples and references that are relatable to a diverse audience.

It also involves acknowledging and valuing different viewpoints and experiences, which can enrich the presentation and foster a more inclusive atmosphere. Furthermore, conscious communication requires a balance between persuasion and maintaining honesty and integrity.

While it’s natural for presenters to persuade their audience towards a particular viewpoint or action, this should never compromise ethical standards. Persuasion should be in factual information, logical reasoning, and a fair representation of alternative perspectives.

By balancing these elements, presenters can ensure that their influence is not only effective but also ethically sound and respectful of their audience’s intelligence and autonomy.

Strategies for Ethical Presenting

Ethical presenting is an art that combines the skillful delivery of content with a deep sense of responsibility and integrity.

Building trust and credibility with your audience:

Trust is the bedrock of effective communication, and it begins with the presenter’s commitment to truthfulness and transparency. This involves diligently verifying all information and data before presenting and acknowledging any areas of uncertainty or debate.

Building credibility isn’t just about what you present, but also about how you present yourself – being consistent in your message, showing competency in your subject matter, and displaying genuine respect for your audience’s intelligence and time.

Engaging the audience responsibly:

Engagement in ethical presenting means more than just holding the audience’s attention; it’s about involving them in a way that respects their perspectives and values.

This can be achieved through the use of inclusive language, considering cultural sensitivities, and creating an environment where feedback and differing opinions are welcomed. It also means avoiding sensationalism or emotional manipulation.

Instead, aim to connect with the audience through compelling, relevant content, and a narrative that resonates with their experiences and expectations.

Address challenges during presentations:

This could range from dealing with biased or controversial content to handling unexpected audience reactions or questions.

Presenters should have strategies in place to navigate these situations gracefully, such as redirecting the conversation to a more neutral ground, or acknowledging and respectfully addressing differing viewpoints.

It’s also important to be aware of and adhere to any ethical guidelines specific to your field or organization.

Practical Applications

Exploring case examples of successful ethical presentations offers invaluable insights into the practical application of these principles.

For instance, a notable case involved a technology company that faced backlash over privacy concerns. In addressing this issue, their presentation exemplified ethical communication by transparently acknowledging the problem, presenting clear steps taken to address it, and openly discussing the challenges ahead.

This approach not only restored trust but also reinforced their commitment to user privacy and corporate responsibility.

Another example can be seen in the healthcare sector, where a pharmaceutical company presented clinical trial results for a new drug. They achieved ethical excellence by providing comprehensive data, including limitations and potential side effects, thus prioritizing patient safety over persuasive marketing.

These cases highlight how ethical presentations can build credibility, foster trust, and maintain integrity, even in challenging situations.

In real-life scenarios, ethical decision-making often involves navigating complex situations where the right choice isn’t always clear-cut.

For example, a financial analyst presenting to potential investors might face the dilemma of how much risk information to disclose.

Ethical presenting in this context would involve a balanced view of the potential returns and risks, avoiding the temptation to underplay risks for short-term gain.

Similarly, a marketing professional presenting a controversial product would need to balance promotional tactics with honest disclosures about the product’s limitations.

This includes training in cultural competence to ensure sensitivity and inclusivity, using feedback mechanisms like surveys or Q&A sessions to gauge audience reaction and ethical alignment, and adopting presentation tools that enable transparency.

Navigating Ethical Dilemmas

Presenters often find themselves in positions where they are required to share important information without compromising confidentiality or privacy.

This delicate balance calls for stringent adherence to ethical guidelines, such as anonymizing data where necessary, obtaining consent for the use of sensitive examples, and being transparent about the measures taken to protect confidentiality.

For instance, in medical or financial presentations, where personal data is involved, it is imperative to ensure that all information is presented in a way that respects individual privacy while still conveying the necessary message.

This approach not only upholds ethical standards but also builds trust with the audience, demonstrating that their privacy and confidentiality are of paramount importance.

The ethical considerations in marketing and sales presentations present a different set of challenges.

Here, the focus is on avoiding misleading or overly aggressive tactics. It’s about presenting products or services truthfully, without exaggerating benefits or omitting potential drawbacks.

For example, a marketing presentation should not overpromise what a product can deliver or use fear-based tactics to coerce the audience into making a purchase. Instead, ethical marketing involves providing the potential benefits are against any limitations.

In virtual environments, ethical presenting takes on additional dimensions. Presenters should be cognizant of the diverse and potentially global nature of their audience, ensuring that content is culturally sensitive and accessible.

Tips for ethical presenting in virtual settings include being mindful of time zones, using inclusive language, ensuring digital accessibility, and respecting the digital privacy of participants.

Moreover, engaging responsibly with the audience in these environments involves clear communication, effective use of technology to facilitate interaction, and maintaining a professional demeanor, regardless of the informal nature of virtual settings.

Great presentations are more than just good speeches. They are ethical, conscious and mindful of the audience. They take into account all of these factors, as well as your intentions and motivations for speaking in the first place. Take a look at how CustomShow could help in your sales situations .

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PRDV217: Introduction to Sales

Ethics in public speaking.

This article offers guidance on ensuring you do not mislead your audience. It touches on the importance of honest communication and the long-term consequences of violating your audience's trust.

The study of ethics in human communication is hardly a recent endeavor. One of the earliest discussions of ethics in communication (and particularly in public speaking) was conducted by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus. In the centuries since Plato's time, an entire subfield within the discipline of human communication has developed to explain and understand communication ethics.

Communication Code of Ethics

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.

We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.

We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.

We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and society.

We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.

We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.

We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.

We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.

We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

As public speakers, one of the first ethical areas we should be concerned with is information honesty. While there are cases where speakers have blatantly lied to an audience, it is more common for speakers to prove a point by exaggerating, omitting facts that weigh against their message, or distorting information. We believe that speakers build a relationship with their audiences, and that lying, exaggerating, or distorting information violates this relationship. Ultimately, a speaker will be more persuasive by using reason and logical arguments supported by facts rather than relying on emotional appeals designed to manipulate the audience. It is also important to be honest about where all your information comes from in a speech. As speakers, examine your information sources and determine whether they are biased or have hidden agendas. For example, you are not likely to get accurate information about nonwhite individuals from a neo-Nazi website. While you may not know all your sources of information firsthand, you should attempt to find objective sources that do not have an overt or covert agenda that skews the argument you are making. The second part of information honesty is to fully disclose where we obtain the information in our speeches. As ethical speakers, it is important to always cite your sources of information within the body of a speech. Whether you conducted an interview or read a newspaper article, you must tell your listeners where the information came from. We mentioned earlier in this chapter that using someone else's words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism . The word "plagiarism" stems from the Latin word plagiaries, or kidnapper. The American Psychological Association states in its publication manual that ethical speakers do not claim "words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due". In the previous sentence, we placed quotation marks around the sentence to indicate that the words came from the American Psychological Association and not from us. When speaking informally, people sometimes use "air quotes" to signal direct quotations - but this is not a recommended technique in public speaking. Instead, speakers need to verbally tell an audience when they are using someone else's information. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When Senator Joseph Biden was running for president of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that the university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result. Even if you are not running for president of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is important to you as a student. Many universities have policies that include dismissal from the institution for student plagiarism of academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lower credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing grade on your assignment or expulsion from your school. While we will talk in more detail about plagiarism later in this book, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of giving credit to the speakers and authors whose ideas we pass on within our own speeches and writing. Speakers tend to fall into one of three major traps with plagiarism. The first trap is failing to tell the audience the source of a direct quotation. In the previous paragraph, we used a direct quotation from the American Psychological Association; if we had not used the quotation marks and clearly listed where the cited material came from, you, as a reader, would not have known the source of that information. To avoid plagiarism, you always need to tell your audience when you are directly quoting information within a speech. The second plagiarism trap public speakers fall into is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech you talk about those three types of schoolyard bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing. Typically, the only information you do not need to cite is information that is general knowledge. General knowledge is information that is publicly available and widely known by a large segment of society. For example, you would not need to provide a citation within a speech for the name of Delaware's capital. Although many people do not know the capital of Delaware without looking it up, this information is publicly available and easily accessible, so assigning credit to one specific source is not useful or necessary. The third plagiarism trap that speakers fall into is re-citing someone else's sources within a speech. To explain this problem, let's look at a brief segment from a research paper written by Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam: The main character on the hit Fox television show House, Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, "It is a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what". This notion that "everybody lies" is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead, the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as "completely honest". In this example, we see that the authors of this paragraph cited information from two external sources: Shore and Barclay and Tummer, Edgley, and Olmstead. These two groups of authors are given credit for their i deas. The authors make it clear that they (Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam) did not produce the television show House or conduct the study that found that only 38.5 percent of statements were completely honest. Instead, these authors cited information found in two other locations. This type of citation is appropriate. However, if a speaker read the paragraph and said the following during a speech, it would be plagiarism: "According to Wrench DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam, in a study of 130 participants, only 38.5 percent of the responses were completely honest". In this case, the speaker is attributing the information cited to the authors of the paragraph, which is not accurate. If you want to cite the information within your speech, you need to read the original article by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead and cite that information yourself. There are two main reasons we do this. First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead really actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information. The second reason we do not re-cite someone else's sources within our speeches is because it is intellectually dishonest. You owe your listeners an honest description of where the facts you are relating came from, not just the name of an author who cited those facts. It is more work to trace the original source of a fact or statistic, but by doing that extra work you can avoid this plagiarism trap.

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

This ethical principle affirms that a civil society depends on freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent and that informed and responsible decisions can only be made if all members of society are free to express their thoughts and opinions. Further, it holds that diverse viewpoints, including those that disagree with accepted authority, are important for the functioning of a democratic society. If everyone only listened to one source of information, then we would be easily manipulated and controlled. For this reason, we believe that individuals should be willing to listen to a range of speakers on a given subject. As listeners or consumers of communication, we should realize that this diversity of perspectives enables us to be more fully informed on a subject. Imagine voting in an election after listening only to the campaign speeches of one candidate. The perspective of that candidate would be so narrow that you would have no way to accurately understand and assess the issues at hand or the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing candidates. Unfortunately, some voters do limit themselves to listening only to their candidate of choice and, as a result, base their voting decisions on incomplete - and, not infrequently, inaccurate - information. Listening to diverse perspectives includes being willing to hear dissenting voices. Dissent is by nature uncomfortable, as it entails expressing opposition to authority, often in very unflattering terms. Legal scholar Steven H. Shiffrin has argued in favor of some symbolic speech (e.g., flag burning) because we as a society value the ability of anyone to express their dissent against the will and ideas of the majority. Dissent, injustice and the meanings of America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ethical communicators will be receptive to dissent, no matter how strongly they may disagree with the speaker's message because they realize that a society that forbids dissent cannot function democratically. Ultimately, honoring free speech and seeking out a variety of perspectives is very important for all listeners. We will discuss this idea further in the chapter on listening.

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

This is another ethical characteristic that is specifically directed at receivers of a message. As listeners, we often let our perceptions of a speaker's nonverbal behavior – his or her appearance, posture, mannerisms, eye contact, and so on – determine our opinions about a message before the speaker has said a word. We may also find ourselves judging a speaker based on information we have heard about him or her from other people. Perhaps you have heard from other students that a particular teacher is a really boring lecturer or is really entertaining in class. Even though you do not have personal knowledge, you may prejudge the teacher and his or her message based on information you have been given from others. The NCA credo reminds us that to be ethical listeners, we need to avoid such judgments and instead make an effort to listen respectfully; only when we have understood a speaker's viewpoint are we ready to begin forming our opinions of the message. Listeners should try to objectively analyze the content and arguments within a speech before deciding how to respond. Especially when we disagree with a speaker, we might find it difficult to listen to the content of the speech and, instead, work on creating a rebuttal the entire time the speaker is talking. When this happens, we do not strive to understand the speaker and do not respect the speaker. Of course, this does not just affect the listener in the public speaking situation. As speakers, we are often called upon to evaluate and refute potential arguments against our positions. While we always want our speeches to be as persuasive as possible, we do ourselves and our audiences a disservice when we downplay, distort, or refuse to mention important arguments from the opposing side. Fairly researching and evaluating counterarguments is an important ethical obligation for the public speaker.

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

Speakers need to take a two-pronged approach when addressing any audience: caring about the audience and understanding the audience. When you as a speaker truly care about your audience's needs and desires, you avoid setting up a manipulative climate. This is not to say that your audience will always perceive their own needs and desires in the same way you do, but if you make an honest effort to speak to your audience in a way that has their best interests at heart, you are more likely to create persuasive arguments that are not just manipulative appeals. Second, it is important for a speaker to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding. To do this, you should first learn as much as possible about your audience, a process called audience analysis. We will discuss this topic in more detail in the audience analysis chapter. To create a climate of caring and mutual respect, it is important for us as speakers to be open with our audiences so that our intentions and perceptions are clear. Nothing alienates an audience faster than a speaker with a hidden agenda unrelated to the stated purpose of the speech. One of our coauthors once listened to a speaker give a two-hour talk, allegedly about workplace wellness, which actually turned out to be an infomercial for the speaker's weight-loss program. In this case, the speaker clearly had a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda, which made the audience feel disrespected.

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

This ethical principle is very important for all speakers. Hopefully, intimidation, coercion, and violence will not be part of your public speaking experiences, but some public speakers have been known to call for violence and incite mobs of people to commit attrocities. Thus distortion and expressions of intolerance and hatred are of special concern when it comes to public speaking. Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning. Unfortunately, some speakers take information and use it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information. One place we see distortion frequently is in the political context, where politicians cite a statistic or the results of a study and either completely alter the information or use it in a deceptive manner. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (http://www.factcheck.org), and the St. Petersburg Times's Politifact (http://www.politifact.com) are nonpartisan organizations devoted to analyzing political messages and demonstrating how information has been distorted. Expressions of intolerance and hatred that are to be avoided include using ageist , heterosexist , racist , sexist , and any other form of speech that demeans or belittles a group of people. Hate speech from all sides of the political spectrum in our society is detrimental to ethical communication. As such, we as speakers should be acutely aware of how an audience may perceive words that could be considered bigoted. For example, suppose a school board official involved in budget negotiations used the word "shekels" to refer to money, which he believes the teachers' union should be willing to give up. Conn. shekel shellacking. New York Post. The remark would be likely to prompt accusations of anti-Semitism and to distract listeners from any constructive suggestions the official might have for resolving budget issues. Although the official might insist that he meant no offense, he damaged the ethical climate of the budget debate by using a word associated with bigotry. At the same time, it is important for listeners to pay attention to expressions of intolerance or hatred. Extremist speakers sometimes attempt to disguise their true agendas by avoiding bigoted "buzzwords" and using mild-sounding terms instead. For example, a speaker advocating the overthrow of a government might use the term "regime change" instead of "revolution"; similarly, proponents of genocide in various parts of the world have used the term "ethnic cleansing" instead of "extermination." By listening critically to the gist of a speaker's message as well as the specific language he or she uses, we can see how that speaker views the world.

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We believe that finding and bringing to light situations of inequality and injustice within our society is important. Public speaking has been used throughout history to point out inequality and injustice, from Patrick Henry arguing against the way the English government treated the American colonists and Sojourner Truth describing the evils of slavery to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and Army Lt. Dan Choi's speeches arguing that the military's "do not ask, do not tell policy" is unjust. Many social justice movements have started because young public speakers have decided to stand up for what they believe is fair and just.

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

This ethical principle involves balancing personal disclosure with discretion. It is perfectly normal for speakers to want to share their own personal opinions and feelings about a topic; however, it is also important to highlight information within a speech that represents your own thoughts and feelings. Your listeners have a right to know the difference between facts and personal opinions. Similarly, we have an obligation to respect others' privacy and confidentiality when speaking. If information is obtained from printed or publicly distributed material, it is perfectly appropriate to use that information without getting permission, as long as you cite it. However, when you have a great anecdote one of your friends told you in confidence, or access to information that is not available to the general public, it is best to seek permission before using the information in a speech. This ethical obligation even has legal implications in many government and corporate contexts. For example, individuals who work for the Central Intelligence Agency are legally precluded from discussing their work in public without prior review by the agency. And companies such as Google also have policies requiring employees to seek permission before engaging in public speaking in which sensitive information might be leaked.

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

The last statement of NCA's ethical credo may be the most important one. We live in a society where a speaker's message can literally be heard around the world in a matter of minutes, thanks to our global communication networks. Extreme remarks made by politicians, media commentators, and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, can unexpectedly "go viral" with regrettable consequences. It is not unusual to see situations where a speaker talks hatefully about a specific group, but when one of the speaker's listeners violently attacks a member of the group, the speaker insists that he or she had no way of knowing that this could possibly have happened. Washing your hands of responsibility is unacceptable: all speakers should accept responsibility for the short-term and long-term consequences of their speeches. Although it is certainly not always the speaker's fault if someone commits an act of violence, the speaker should take responsibility for her or his role in the situation. This process involves being truly reflective and willing to examine how your speech could have tragic consequences. Furthermore, attempting to persuade a group of people to take any action means you should make sure that you understand the consequences of that action. Whether you are persuading people to vote for a political candidate or just encouraging them to lose weight, you should know what the short-term and long-term consequences of that decision could be. While our predictions of short-term and long-term consequences may not always be right, we have an ethical duty to at least think through the possible consequences of our speeches and the actions we encourage.

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Thus far in this section we have introduced you to the basics of thinking through the ethics of public speaking. Knowing about ethics is essential, but even more important to being an ethical public speaker is putting that knowledge into practice by thinking through possible ethical pitfalls prior to standing up and speaking out.

This Public Speaking Ethics Checklist is based on our discussion in this chapter to help you think through some of these issues.

Public Speaking Ethics Checklist

Instructions: For each of the following ethical issues, check either true or false.

I have knowingly added information within my speech that is false.
I have attempted to persuade people by unnecessarily tapping into emotion rather than logic.
I have not clearly cited all the information within my speech.
I do not know who my sources of information are or what makes my sources credible.
I wrote my speech based on my own interests and really have not thought much about my audience.
I have not really thought much about my audience's needs and desires.
I have altered some of the facts in my speech to help me be more persuasive.
Some of the language in my speech may be considered bigoted.
My goal is to manipulate my audience to my point of view.
I sometimes blend in my personal opinions when discussing actual facts during the speech.
My personal opinions are just as good as facts, so I do not bother to distinguish between the two during my speech.
I have used information in my speech from a friend or colleague that probably should not be repeated.
I am using information in my speech that a source gave me even though it was technically "off the record."
It is just a speech. I really do not care what someone does with the information when I am done speaking.
I have not really thought about the short- or long-term consequences of my speech.

Scoring: For ethical purposes, all your answers should have been "false."

Key Takeaways

All eight of the principles espoused in the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication can be applied to public speaking. Some of the principles relate more to the speaker's role in communication, while others relate to both the speaker's and the audience's role in public speech.

When preparing a speech, it is important to think about the ethics of public speaking from the beginning. When a speaker sets out to be ethical in his or her speech from the beginning, arriving at ethical speech is much easier.

Communication Ethics

Aug 24, 2014

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Communication Ethics. COMM 4020 Week 3. Agenda. Practical Ethics Overview of Ethical Paradigms Utilitarianism Deontology Divine Command Ethical Relativism Virtue Ethics. Agenda. Practical Ethics Overview of Ethical Paradigms Utilitarianism Deontology Divine Command

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Communication Ethics COMM 4020 Week 3

Agenda • Practical Ethics • Overview of Ethical Paradigms • Utilitarianism • Deontology • Divine Command • Ethical Relativism • Virtue Ethics

Why study ethics? • Law, rules, policies vs. ethics • How do you decideright vs. wrong?

Practical Ethics • Codes of Conduct • Five ethical principles • Ethical obligations for communicators • The “well-lit room” test • For quadrants of ethical decision making

Codes of Conduct • Ethical codes of conduct for professional organizations • Codes go above and beyond the rules, laws and policies • IABC Code of Ethics • “Engage in communication that is not only legal but also ethical and sensitive to cultural values and beliefs” • http://www.iabc.com/about/code.htm • “Engage in truthful, accurate and fair communication that facilitates respect and mutual understanding”

Ethical Principles • Autonomy (let others have control) • Nonmaleficence (do no harm) • Beneficence (do good) • Justice (be fair) • Fidelity (do what you say)

Ethical Obligations for Communicators • Accuracy • Completeness • Speed in disseminating important information • Storage and archiving of communications

The “well-lit room” test

Four quadrants of ethical decisions

Ethical Paradigms • Ethics is best viewed as a process of decision making. The factors used in this process tell us how an issues manager views the issue, as well as what he or she deemed an important consideration in deciding the issue. Therefore, we can discern the primary ethical decision-making model for a manager based on his or her description of the decision making processin an ethical issue. • Shannon Bowen, University of Houston, 2002, emphasis added

Ethical Paradigms • Utilitarianism • Deontology • Divine Command • Ethical Relativism • Virtue Ethics

Utilitarianism • Motive is unimportant – outcome matters • “We must act in a way to produce the best possible outcomes for as many people as possible” • Right vs. wrong?

Utilitarianism • Forms of Utilitarianism • Hedonic (pleasure over pain) • Rule-based (“useful rule” standard) • Ideal • Private ethics (happiness of the actor) • Criticisms • What are consequences and their value? • Happiness vs. “preventing suffering”

Ethical Systems Rachel visited her friend Sarah in the hospital. Sarah had been badly burned and blinded in a car accident and seemed most concerned about how disfigured she might look. She asks Rachel how awful she looks. Rachel lies to Sarah and tells her the effects of the burn are not bad at all. System: Utilitarianism Reasons: The decision was based on the best consequence for Sarah.

Deontology • Duty (deon) and study (logos) • “We must do the right thing, no matter how morally good or bad the consequences may be.” • Introduced by Immanuel Kant in the late 18th century • Right vs. wrong?

Deontology • Proposes there is a “truth” to actions • “If your action became a universal law, would it still be good?” • Trolley dilemma • “Threshold” Deontology avoids the issue of moral absolutism

Ethical Systems Ted, an insurance agent, receives a phone call from a fellow agent who works in the same office, asking for a ride to work because his car has broken down. Ted had intended to use the drive to work to view some property he would like to buy but picking up his co-worker would not leave him time to do this. He decides not to refuse the co-worker's request. System: Deontology Reasons: The decision was based on duty - Ted would want his decision to be universal.

Divine Command • God’s will is the foundation of ethics • “We must act in a way that follows the commandments of God” • Right vs. wrong?

Divine Command • Being moral does not always equal happiness, unless one believes in an afterlife that rewards goodness • Answers the question, “why be moral?”

Ethical Systems Rachel has fallen in love with Nathan, a schoolmate in a small religious school set up by a Christian sect. Her parents forbid a marriage with Nathan and make arrangements for Rachel to marry Peter, another youth in the church. Rachel followed her parents wishes and married Peter. System: Divine Command Reasons: The decision was based on one of The Ten Commandments - honor thy mother and father, for instance.

Ethical Relativism • One’s culture and environment determine morality • “We must act in a way that is right for us. What is right for you may be different.” • Right vs. wrong?

Ethical Relativism • Protagoras: “While whatever anyone believes is true, things that some people believe may be better than what others believe.” • Explains differences in cultures, norms, and societies • “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” • Cannot pass judgments on the actions of others. What is right is right for me.

Ethical Systems Enu, the old grandmother of an Shoshone tribe, could no longer chew the buffalo hides to make them supple enough for making items of clothing. When winter came and food supplies were not sufficient for all, it was decided by the tribe that Enu would be left alone on a nearby hill to die. System: Ethical Relativism Reasons: The decision was based on the mores or traditions of the tribe.

Virtue Ethics • Motives should drive our decisions • “We must act like a virtuous person would act in a similar situation” • Right vs. wrong?

Virtue Ethics • Aristotle: “Ideal character traits make a virtuous person” • You will do the right thing because you’re trying to be the right kind of person • Challenges: • Virtues take time, reflection and experience • Is it too self-centered?

Ethical Systems Thomas, a missionary doctor in El Salvador, was told by the government to abandon his work and return to the United States. Thomas doesn't even consider stopping his work with the poor people of the countryside. System: Virtue Ethics Reasons: The decision was based on wanting to continue doing good.

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Test-Driven Ethics for Machine Learning

Encouraging organizations to adopt a test-driven ethical development approach.

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Test-Driven Development and an Ethical Test Procedure

Machine learning (ML) applications and the organizations that develop them should be accountable. Proposed regulations require impact assessment and there are calls to strengthen enforcement of regulations for ethical business practice regulations. a Responsible organizations should implement a “test-driven ethics” development approach rooted in pragmatist discourse ethics and lessons from test-driven development.

This approach extends the popular “principles” approach to ethics seen in industry, government, and the academy. 2 Adopting ethical principles will not guarantee ethical actions or outcomes. Principles make values clear, but they are difficult to apply, vary in levels of abstraction, and require judgment when choosing among operationalizations. 9 For example, the principle of fairness is good, but assessing fairness requires operationalization. Common operationalizations (for example, “equalized odds” and “demographic parity”) can contradict each other. b In sum, ethical principles espouse values , but are poor at guiding ML application development.

Principles describe “final” goals 15 —the effect of ML applications on the world. But ML’s effects in social systems cannot be entirely anticipated. 19 Simon 15 advocated for a pragmatic, procedural approach generating intermediate goals to set initial conditions for development in complex situations. For ethical ML, this involves operationalizing desirable principles, then continually testing to see if the outcomes align with these principles. Treat each development iteration as a hypothesis about ethical implications of the application, and then subject this hypothesis to strict tests, while being open to unforeseen outcomes. Treating each iteration as a working hypothesis is key in pragmatist or “fallibilist” approach. Fallible humans cannot foresee the future; they must conduct complex development activities with humility, monitoring and adapting using tentative goals. This makes it possible to adapt toward better outcomes because every iteration is a tested hypothesis.

In discourse ethics, this testing process involves communication and discourse among stakeholders. 8 Developers, managers, employees, shareholders, customers, users, and others are stakeholders with different perspectives on ethics. Situations change, and unforeseen ethical issues arise. Discourse ethics anticipates this, involving continuous communication among stakeholders without assuming a correct answer. Different voices come together to continually assess and weigh alternative actions. There is no ideal solution to complex ethical problems, but through communication things move toward better outcomes. Communication should encourage constructive, deliberative discourse. Applying discourse ethics in developing ML applications extends the paradigm of test-driven development toward ethical directions, but it takes significant resources and commitment to implement test-driven ethics. We sketch out a procedure for test-driven ethics that manages these costs.

Organizations need procedures that anticipate ethical issues and guide development and systems for resilience of an ML application in use. A test-driven development process for ethics is an intentional and continual audit that reflects on the process, scans for change, and updates judgements. This means treating application implementation as the start of a continual process of developing tests for different scenarios and reconciling inconsistencies as new requirements, industry best practices, and new goals are identified.

A test-driven ethics procedure would involve three activities at each iteration: Generate tests with multiple operationalizations for each focal ethical principle; set conditions for a deliberative discourse; and audit the process for changes and new information.

Generate tests. Test-driven development (such as in DevOps approaches) uses a test library to continuously improve software quality. 1 Ethically oriented test-driven development would develop a test library for ethical standards such as fairness, privacy, interpretability, bias, contestability, and so forth. Addressing all ethical issues at once would be daunting, so ML development teams could proceed incrementally—initially focusing on one principle and expanding with each iteration.

Test-driven ethical discourse requires multiple tests for each focal ethical dimension. Ethical principles cannot be measured with one metric or testing strategy. For example, a credit scoring system’s fairness could be operationalized as demographic parity of gender, improving conditions for the least fortunate, data acquired without deception or fraud, or just use. The “Fairness Indicators” library from TensorFlow c calculates common metrics and scales for large datasets and models for each of these operationalizations. Further, the Aequitas Python toolkit provides a “Fairness Tree” that allows developers to determine the most appropriate metric(s) to utilize in their context and subsequently conduct audits across multiple metrics. 11

Using the Synthetic Data Vault (SDV) library, 10 tests could utilize synthetically generated data, custom-built to the organization’s use case, to test a model’s performance across different demographics or user groups. Tests could build on practices such as adversarial testing and using pre-trained datasets designed to identify bias such as StereoSet. d The Alibi library 4 can be used to generate high-quality counterfactuals for an organization’s ML to aide with model interpretation. 18

Tests can also extend beyond quantitative analyses. Ethnographic methods can be crucial in identifying how AI systems are used by individual actors and larger institutions, allowing a more thorough understanding of their societal impact. Together, these libraries, frameworks, and datasets provide guidelines, tools, and approaches; the key is to include multiple tests for each ethical goal.

General goals and principles can motivate development, but organizations must operationalize each principle through multiple tests. Organizational stakeholders would determine the ethical tests for a given decision context and for their current intermediate goals. This differs from simple requirements testing because the aim is to generate discourse through discussion of their results.

Deliberative discourse. Testing is not a panacea. Testing is the catalyst for discourse among stakeholders and informs those discussions. The array of tests will likely identify unforeseen ethical violations and provide mixed results. This will spark generativity in identifying improvements. Effective discourse ethics relies on hearing from all stakeholders, including marginalized groups, in designing and testing requirements for any ML applications so that powerful stakeholder interests do not dominate. Diverse voices need to be incorporated to reflect differing priorities. Engaging unheard voices in discussion of the ethical test results during the application development process can establish a shared language and common ground and enable a defensible compromise at each iteration. Deliberative discourse is difficult and requires procedures involving civility, rationality, and reflective, communicative action. Development teams need to learn to deliberate with a variety of stakeholders and should start small. Deliberation systems can help.

Ethical standards may also change over time. Goals could shift from demographic parity to equalized odds, definitions of protected groups can be adjusted, or a conflicting goal could become more salient. For a given use, organizations must understand the important ethical concepts, and their developers must keep these in mind as they design the application and the testing for subsequent iterations.

Continual audit. After release, the organization documents decisions, reflects on how well the process worked, and scans for new ethical requirements, test libraries and datasets, or contextual changes to inform subsequent improvements. Audits using the test suite can verify that ML applications comply with corporate policies, industry standards, and regulations. Organizations also need to observe the use and outcomes of the ML application and report relevant metrics.

The test-driven ethics approach requires that organizations generate and apply tests on ethical issues for each iteration, discuss test results with diverse stakeholders, and audit the process through reflection and integrating new information. Starting small is a good idea, and development teams should experiment, learn, and build on successes.

Development organizations have been advised to incorporate an “ethics first” approach, 2 to follow best practices and norms, 12 and include frequent testing. 13 This does not tell developers how to incorporate ethics first, what norms to follow, and what developers should be testing. Fortunately, studies of discourse ethics during development provide some guidance. Value-levers open up conversations about application design decisions. 14 There are approaches for generating deliberative discourse around datasets used in practice (for example, Gebru et al. 3 ). Reflective design, participatory design, or value-centered design can be leveraged to understand how ML applications can be designed for resilience with continual ethical testing as a design goal.

We advocate for a test-driven ethical development approach rooted in pragmatist discourse ethics. We encourage organizations to construct and share open-source ethical test libraries, datasets, and best practices to advance this approach and harness the power of ML to contribute to a better world.

The implementation of this approach introduces significant costs to the development process. Espousing principles is easy, but operationalizing, monitoring, and auditing outcomes in line with those principles is not easy, nor is it cheap. Conducting an array of tests introduces an array of non-functional requirements that add burden to the development environment. Discourse among participants can be time consuming and require extensive coordination. Additional costs are unavoidable, but the alternative is to fail to effectively engage ethical issues in ML and later be held accountable. Test-driven development has added burden to developers, yet they have adapted, and they can do it again. At the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab, we are developing an appropriate test-driven ethics and auditing process, set of standards, and curriculum integrating both quantitative and qualitative auditing methods to make this idea a reality, while mitigating some of the associated costs. We invite others to help. Together, we can drive down the costs of implementation to ensure some ethical checks on ML advancements.

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Millions of customers' data found on dark web in latest AT&T data breach

Chloe Veltman

An AT&T store in New York. The telecommunications company said Saturday that a data breach has compromised the information tied to 7.6 million current customers. Richard Drew/AP hide caption

An AT&T store in New York. The telecommunications company said Saturday that a data breach has compromised the information tied to 7.6 million current customers.

AT&T announced on Saturday it is investigating a data breach involving the personal information of more than 70 million current and former customers leaked on the dark web.

According to information about the breach on the company's website, 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders have been impacted. An AT&T press release said the breach occurred about two weeks ago, and that the incident has not yet had a "material impact" on its operations.

AT&T said the information included in the compromised data set varies from person to person. It could include social security numbers, full names, email and mailing addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth, as well as AT&T account numbers and passcodes.

The company has so far not identified the source of the leak, at least publicly.

"Based on our preliminary analysis, the data set appears to be from 2019 or earlier," the company said. "Currently, AT&T does not have evidence of unauthorized access to its systems resulting in theft of the data set."

AT&T says cell service is back after a widespread outage and some disrupted 911 calls

The company said it is "reaching out to all 7.6 million impacted customers and have reset their passcodes," via email or letter, and that it plans to communicate with both current and former account holders with compromised sensitive personal information. It said it plans to offer "complimentary identity theft and credit monitoring services" to those affected by the breach.

External cybersecurity experts have been brought in to help investigate, it added.

NPR reached out to a few AT&T stores. The sales representatives in all cases said they were as yet unaware of the breach.

On its website, the telecommunications company encouraged customers to closely monitor their account activity and credit reports.

"Consumers impacted should prioritize changing passwords, monitor other accounts and consider freezing their credit with the three credit bureaus since social security numbers were exposed," Carmen Balber, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, told NPR.

An industry rife with data leaks

AT&T has experienced multiple data breaches over the years.

In March 2023, for instance, the company notified 9 million wireless customers that their customer information had been accessed in a breach of a third-party marketing vendor.

In August 2021 — in an incident AT&T said is not connected to the latest breach — a hacking group claimed it was selling data relating to more than 70 million AT&T customers. At the time, AT&T disputed the source of the data. It was re-leaked online earlier this month. According to a Mar. 22 TechCrunch article , a new analysis of the leaked dataset points to the AT&T customer data being authentic. "Some AT&T customers have confirmed their leaked customer data is accurate," TechCrunch reported. "But AT&T still hasn't said how its customers' data spilled online."

AT&T is by no means the only U.S. telecommunications provider with a history of compromised customer data. The issue is rife across the industry. A 2023 data breach affected 37 million T-Mobile customers. Just last month, a data leak at Verizon impacted more than 63,000 people, the majority of them Verizon employees.

A 2023 report from cyber intelligence firm Cyble said that U.S. telecommunications companies are a lucrative target for hackers. The study attributed the majority of recent data breaches to third-party vendors. "These third-party breaches can lead to a larger scale supply-chain attacks and a greater number of impacted users and entities globally," the report said.

Government rules adapt

Meanwhile, last December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) updated its 16-year-old data breach notification rules to ensure that telecommunications providers adequately safeguard sensitive customer information. According to a press release , the rules aim to "hold phone companies accountable for protecting sensitive customer information, while enabling customers to protect themselves in the event that their data is compromised."

"What makes no sense is leaving our policies stuck in the analog era," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement regarding the changes. "Our phones now know so much about where we go and who we are, we need rules on the books that make sure carriers keep our information safe and cybersecure."

data breach

eCore Public Speaking Textbook (COMM 1113)

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The Basics of Public Speaking
Listening in Public Speaking Settings

Ethics in Public Speaking

Unit 1 Glossary
Developing Topics for Your Speech
Organizing and Outlining
Introductions and Conclusions
Special Occasions
Unit 2 Glossary
Audience Analysis
Researching Your Speeches
Supporting Your Speech Ideas
Informative Speaking
Unit 3 Glossary
Persuasive Speaking
Logical Reasoning
Presentation Aids
Unit 4 Glossary
Attribution and References

After reading this section, the student will be able to:

Explain the legal, cultural, philosophical, and social origins of ethics in public speaking
Explain the difference between plagiarism and correct appropriation of source materials
Understand the value of ethics in building a solid reputation as a speaker
Correctly use source material in a presentation

Sources of Ethical Stances on Communication and Public Speaking

As discussed in The Basics of Public Speaking, there are many reasons to take a public speaking course. Among its numerous benefits, a public speaking course will create more self-confidence; the creation of good arguments will build your critical thinking and research skills, and you will meet new people in your class in a different way and be exposed to their ideas. Also, the course will prepare you for presentations you will be expected to give in later classes (and believe us, there will be many), in your civic and personal life, and for your eventual career.

To this end, this chapter will deal with the subject of ethics. Ethics refers to the branch of philosophy that involves determinations of what is right and moral. On a personal level, it is your own standard of what you should and should not do in the various situations or in all situations. Although ethics are based on personal decisions and values, they are also influenced by factors outside of you. Over the next few pages, we will look at various ways ethics, particularly ethics related to speech, have been thought about. In reading, you should seek to determine how you would explain your own ethical standard for communication. Along with being able to articulate what you would not do, you should have an appreciation for why doing the right thing is important to you.

One of “right things” and most important ways that we speak ethically is to use material from others correctly. Occasionally we hear in the news

media about a political speaker who uses the words of other speakers without attribution or of scholars who use pages out of another scholar’s work without consent or citation. Usually, the discussion of plagiarism stays within the community where it occurred, but there is still damage done to the “borrower’s” reputation as an ethical person and scholar.

Legal Origins of Ethics in Public Speaking

In the twentieth century, “freedom of speech” has been generalized into a freedom of expression. This was especially true in the important Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment in the 1950s through 1970s. Accord- ing to Emerson (1970), such expression is important to our development as human beings individually and in a democracy. Thanks to these historical precedents, we can express ourselves freely in our communities and classrooms, keeping in mind ethical responsibilities to present serious, honest, factual, and well-supported speeches as a matter of respect to your listeners. Additionally, although the First Amendment to the Constitution is usually interpreted by the Supreme Court and lower courts to mean almost no restrictions on freedom of expression, there are a few instances in which the government is held to have a “compelling interest” in controlling, stopping, or preventing certain types of free expression.

One of these instances has to do with threats on the life of the President of the United States, although threats of physical harm against anyone might also result in penalties. Another instance of restrictions on freedom of expression is in those cases where the speaker has the opportunity and means and likelihood of inciting an audience to violence (this is the old “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre” example). The government has also allowed local governments to have reasonable requirements to avoid mobs or public danger or to uphold community standards, such as permits for parades or limiting how many people can meet in a certain size of building. “Reasonable” is sometimes a matter of debate, as the extensive history of Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment shows.

Another type of restriction on freedom of speech is defamatory speech , which is defined in the United States as:

Cultural and Religious Origins of Ethics in Communication

The Golden Rule is related to and a step beyond the “Law of Reciprocity” that determines so much of our social interaction. We also value straight-forwardness; respect for the individual’s freedom of choice; getting access to full information; consistency between action and words; taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes (sometimes necessitating an apology and accepting consequences); and protection of privacy. We fear public humiliation and do not want to violate community norms. We also usually view ourselves as honest and ethical people.

Philosophers and Communication Ethics

Philosophers throughout history have also written on the subject of communication and public speaking ethics. In fact, one of the first philosophers, Plato, objected to the way rhetoric was practiced in his day, because “it made the worse case appear the better.” In other words, the professional public speakers, who could be hired to defend someone in court or the assembly, knew and used techniques that could deceive audiences and turn them from truth. Aristotle responded to this concern from his teacher Plato in his work, Rhetoric . Later, Quintilian, a Roman teacher of rhetoric, wrote that rhetoric was “the good man speaking well,” meaning the speaker must meet the Roman Republic’s definition of a virtuous man.

In more modern times, English philosophers John Stuart Mill (1806- 1873) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) introduced utilitarianism, which presents the ethic of “The greatest good for the greatest number;” that is, whatever benefits the most people is right. A related philosophy, pragmatism, was first discussed by Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914). Pragmatists judge actions by their practical consequences. Some ethicists would differ with the pragmatic position, claiming it supports an “ends justify the means” philosophy. When we say “the ends justify the means,” we are saying that a generally unethical action (intentional misstatement of truth, withholding information, or taking any someone’s freedom of choice) is ethical as long as something good comes from it. Many scholars of ethical communication would disagree with the “ends justify the means” philosophy.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) proposed what was been called the Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.” To paraphrase, any behavior we engage in should be what we think every- one else on the planet should do ethically. In the twentieth century, Jean- Paul Sartre and others called “existentialists” emphasized that the ability and necessity to freely choose our actions is what makes us human, but we are accountable for all our choices. Jurgen Habermas, a more recent scholar, emphasizes the “equal opportunity for participation” of the communication partners (Johannessen, Valde, & Whedbe, 2008).

In addition to respect for the humanity, intelligence, and dignity of your audience, you should be conscious of two other aspects related to ethics of communication: credibility and plagiarism.

Credibility and Ethics

When Aristotle used the term ethos in the 5th century B.C.E. to describe one of the means of persuasion, he defined it as the “wisdom, sagacity, and character of the rhetor” (see Chapter 13 for more coverage of ethos and Aristotle’s other artistic proofs). Modern scholars of communication and persuasion speak more about “credibility” as an attitude the audience has toward the speaker, based on both reality and perception, rather than an innate trait of the speaker. Audience members trust the speaker to varying degrees, based on the evidence and knowledge they have about the speaker and how that lines up with certain factors:

Similarity: does the speaker have experiences, values, and beliefs in common with the audience? Can the audience relate to the speaker because of these commonalities?

Character: does the speaker, in word and action, in the speech and in everyday life, show honesty and integrity?

Competence: does the speaker show that he/she has expertise and sound knowledge about the topic, especially through firsthand experience? And does the speaker show competence in his/her ability to communicate that expertise?

Good will: does the audience perceive the speaker to have ethical intentions toward the audience?

In addition to these key areas will be the audience’s perceptions, or even gut feelings, about more intangible characteristics of the speaker, such as appearance, friendliness, sense of humor, likability, appearance, poise, and communication ability. Many of these traits are conveyed through nonverbal aspects, such as facial expression, eye contact, good posture, and appropriate gestures (see the chapter on Delivery).

Understandably, the same speaker will have a different level of credibility with different audiences. For example, in regard to presidential campaigns, it is interesting to listen to how different people respond to and “trust” different candidates. Donald Trump entered the presidential race as a Republican nominee and quickly became a front runner in many of the early polls and primaries, eventually winning the Electoral College votes, to the surprise of many. Those who voted for him often stated that they value his candor and willingness to say what he thinks because they perceive that as honest and different from other politicians. Others think he makes unwise and thoughtless statements, and they see that as a lack of competence and demeanor to be the national leader. Donald Trump is the same person, but different audiences respond to his behavior and statements in divergent ways.

To only pretend to have goodwill and want the best for the audience will also have a short-term effect. And to intentionally misrepresent your background, such as experience and credentials, is clearly unethical.

Initial credibility is, as you would imagine, the speaker’s credibility at the beginning of or even before the speech. There are a number of factors that would contribute to the initial credibility, even such matters as the “recommendation” of the person who introduces the speaker to the audience. Any knowledge the audience has of the speaker prior to the speech adds to the initial credibility. The initial credibility is important, of course, because it will influence the receptivity of the audience or how well they will listen and be open to the speaker’s ideas. Initial credibility can be influenced also by the perception that the speaker is not well dressed, prepared, or confident at the very beginning. Initial credibility is why how you walk to the lectern and give your introduction matter.

Derived credibility is how the audience members judge the speaker’s credibility and trustworthiness throughout the process of the speech, which also can range from point to point in the speech. Perhaps you have seen those videos on a news program that show a political speaker on one pane of the video and a graph of the audience’s response in real-time to the speaker’s message, usually noted as “approval rating” as the politician speaks. This could be based on the perception of the speaker’s presentation style (delivery), language, specific opinions or viewpoints on subjects, open-mindedness, honesty, and other factors. The point of the derived credibility is that credibility is an active concept that is always changing

Finally, terminal credibility is, as you would think, credibility at the end of the speech. The obvious importance of terminal credibility is that it would factor into the audience’s final decision about what to do with the information, arguments, or appeals of the speaker – in other words, his or her persuasiveness. It would also determine whether the audience would listen to the speaker again in the future. The terminal credibility can be seen as a result of the initial and derived credibility.

Terminal credibility may end up being lower than the initial credibility, but the goal of any speaker should be to have higher terminal credibility. From an ethics standpoint, of course, credibility should not be enhanced by being untruthful with an audience, by misrepresenting one’s viewpoint to please an audience, or by “pandering” to an audience (flattering them). One of the primary attributes of credibility at any stage should be transparency and honesty with the audience.

Although there are many ways that you could undermine your ethical stance before an audience, the one that stands out and is committed most commonly in academic contexts is plagiarism . A dictionary definition of plagiarism would be “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). Accord- ing to the student help website Plagiarism.org, sponsored by WriteCheck, plagiarism is often thought of as “copying another’s work or borrowing someone else’s original ideas” (“What is Plagiarism?”, 2014). However, this source goes on to say that the common definition may mislead some people. Plagiarism also includes:

Turning in someone else’s work as your own;
Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit;
Failing to put quotation marks around an exact quotation correctly;
Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation;
Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit;
Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.

Plagiarism exists outside of the classroom and is a temptation in business, creative endeavors, and politics. However, in the classroom, your instructor will probably take the most immediate action if he or she discovers your plagiarism either from personal experience or through using plagiarism detection (or what is also called “originality checking”) software. Many learning management systems, perhaps such as the one used at your institution, now have a plagiarism detection program embedded in the function where you submit assignments.

Types of Plagiarism

In our long experience of teaching, we have encountered many instances of students presenting work they claim to be original and their own when it is not. We have also seen that students often do not intend to plagiarize but, due to poor training in high school, still are committing an act that could result in a failing grade or worse. Generally, there are three levels of plagiarism: stealing, sneaking, and borrowing. Sometimes these types of plagiarism are intentional, and sometimes they occur unintentionally (you may not know you are plagiarizing). However, as everyone knows, “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking it.” So let’s familiarize you with how plagiarism occurs in order to prevent it from happening.

There is a saying in academia: “If you steal from one source, that is plagiarism; if you steal from twelve, that is scholarship.” Whoever originated this saying may have intended for it to be humorous, but it is a misrepresentation of both plagiarism and scholarship.

Perhaps the student will add a fresh introduction, a personal example or two, and an original conclusion. This “sneaky” plagiarism is easy today due to the Internet and the word processing functions of cutting and pasting.

Most of the time students do not have to worry about copyright violation when they correctly use and cite material from a source. This is because in academic environments, “fair use” is the rule. In short, you are not making any money from using the copyrighted material, such as from a published book. You are only using it for learning purposes and not to make money, so “quoting” (using verbatim) with proper citation a small amount of the material is acceptable for a college class.

One area in speeches where students are not careful about citing is on their presentational slides. If a graphic or photo is borrowed from a web- site (that is, you did not design it), there should be a citation in small letters on the slide. The same would be true of borrowed quotations, data, and ideas. Students also like to put their “works cited” or “references” on the last slide, but this really does not help the audience or get around the possibility of plagiarism.

The third type of plagiarism is “borrowing.” In this case, the student is not stealing wholesale. He or she may actually even give credit for the material, either correctly or incorrectly. He might say, “According to the official website of . . .” or “As found in an article in the Journal of Psychology , Dr. John Smith wrote . . .” Sounds good, right? Well, yes and no. It depends on whether the student has borrowed in a “sneaky way” (cutting and pasting passages together but this time indicating where the sections came from) or if the student is using the ideas but not the exact wording. In other words, has the student adequately, correctly, and honestly paraphrased or summarized the borrowed material, or just “strung the sources together” with some “according to’s”?

Ethically Crediting Sources

In using source material correctly, a speaker does three things:

He or she clearly cites the source of the information. It is here that the oral mode of communication differs from the written mode. In a paper, such as for literature, you would only need to include a parenthetical citation such as (Jones 78) for Modern Language Association (MLA) format, indicating that a writer named Jones contributed this idea on page 78 of a source that the reader can find on the Works Cited Page. In a paper for a class in the social sciences, an American Psychological Association (APA) format citation would be (Jones, 2012) or (Jones, 2012, p. 78). The first would be used if you summarized or paraphrased information from the source, and second (with the page number) is used to indicate the words were quoted exactly from a source. Obviously, in that case, quotation marks are used around the quoted material. In both cases, if the reader wants more information, it can be found on the References Page (APA) or Works Cited Page (MLA). (Note: This text and its examples use APA because the Communi- cation discipline is considered a social science. As with other advice, use the format your instructor directs you to use.) A speech is quite different. Saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” really does very little for the audience. They can’t turn to the back of the paper. They don’t have a way, other than oral communication, to understand the type of information being cited, how recent it is, the credibility of the author you are citing and why you think he or she is a valid source, or the title of the work. It is necessary in a speech to give more complete information that would help the audience understand its value. The page number, the publishing company, and city it was published in are probably not important, but what is important is whether it is a website, a scholarly article, or a book; whether it was written in 1950 or 2010; and what is the position, background, or credentials of the source. So, instead of “According to Jones, p. 78,” a better approach would be, “According to Dr. Samuel Jones, Head of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University, in a 2010 article in a prestigious medical journal…”

“In her 2012 book, The Iraq War in Context , historian Mary Smith of the University of Georgia states that…”

“In consulting the website for the American Humane Society, I found these statistics about animal abuse compiled by the Society in 2012…”

This approach shows more clearly that you have done proper research to support your ideas and arguments. It also allows your audience to find the material if they want more information. Notice that in all three examples the citation precedes the fact or informa tion being cited. This order allows the audience to recognize the borrowed material better. The use of a clear citation up-front makes it more noticeable as well as more credible to the audience.

The speaker should take special care to use information that is in context and relevant. This step takes more critical thinking skills. For example, it is often easy to misinterpret statistical information (more on that in Chapter 7), or to take a quotation from an expert in one field and apply it to another field. It is also important to label facts as facts and opinions as opinions, especially when dealing with controversial subjects. In addition, be sure you understand the material you are citing before using it. If you are unsure of any words,

look their definitions up so you are sure to be using the material as it is intended. Finally, it is important that you understand the type of publication or source you are using, for example, a scholarly publication in contrast to a journalistic one.

The speaker should phrase or summarize the ideas of the source into his or her own words. Paraphrasing, which is putting the words and ideas of others into one’s own authentic or personal language, is often misunderstood by students. Your instructor may walk you through an exercise to help your class understand that paraphrasing is not changing 10% of the words in a long quotation (such as two or three out of twenty) but still keeping most of the vocabulary and word order (called syntax) of the source. You should compose the information in your own “voice” or way of expressing yourself. In fact, you would be better off to think in terms of summarizing your source material rather than paraphrasing. For one thing, you will be less likely to use too much of the original and therefore be skirting the edge of plagiarism. Secondly, you will usually want to put the main arguments of a source in your own words and make it shorter. Here is an example of an original source and three possible ways to deal with it.

Original information, posted on CNN.com website, Octo- ber 31, 2015:

“The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year. More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said. The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retroactive, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%, the commission said. Early release will be a challenge for the inmates as well as the judicial bureaucracy” (Casarez, 2015).

With that as our original source, which of the following is truly paraphrasing?

The CNN News website says the federal government is releasing 40,000 felons from prison in the next few years.

According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015, the federal government’s Sentencing Commission is beginning to release prisoners in November based on a decision made in 2014. That decision was to make maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders shorter by an average of 18%. Over the next several years over 40,000 federal felons could be let go. However, this policy change to early release will not be easy for the justice system or those released.

The largest release ever of federal inmates will take place in early November. At first 6,600 inmates will be released, and then over 16,000 over the first year. The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it could release over 40,000 federal felons over the upcoming years because the sentencing commission decided a year ago to lessen maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make this happen for those already in jail. When the Sentencing Commission says that when it made that decision, the sentences were reduced an average of 18%. Early release will be a challenge for the felons as well as the judicial system. This came from a story on CNN News website in later October 2015.

These exercises may raise the question, “Should I always paraphrase or summarize rather than directly quote a source?” There are times when it is appropriate to use a source’s exact wording, but quoting a source exactly should be done sparingly—sort of like using hot sauce! You should have a good reason for it, such as that the source is highly respected, has said the idea in a compelling way, or the material is well known and others would recognize it. If you do, you should make it clear you are quoting them exactly by the way you introduce and end the borrowed material.

Something to Think About

Why do you think it is so hard for students to learn to cite sources appropriately?

The following exercise might be helpful for you to develop an understand- ing of orally citing your sources.

Choose one of your sources for an upcoming speech for this exercise. On a sheet of paper, answer these 9 questions.

Is this information you found in a unique source, or information that was repeated in all or most of your sources? (This may bear upon whether you need to cite the information or not.)
Who is the original author or “speaker” of this quotation or material?
What is the title of the source?
Is it a primary or secondary source? Is the writer quoting someone else (secondary) or is the author the one who discovered the knowledge/information? If the source is secondary, who is being quoted or cited originally?
What do you know about the source of the citation? Is she/he an expert, such as a scientist, doctor, government official, college professor, etc?
Where did you find the article? In what journal or magazine, on what website, in what book?
If a website, who sponsors the website (what organization, government, company)?
When was this information published? What is the date on it?
Are you repeating the source’s words exactly or just abstracting (summarizing) what was said? Which would be better, in this case?

If you had to pick 5 of the 7 above to put in your speech, which would you use, based on the three criteria of

1. An audience can find it

2. It makes you look more credible

3. It is ethical? Put a star by them.

If you had to pick 4 of the 7, which one would you take out from the previous question? (Cross it out)

Compare with classmates.

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2.2 Ethics in Public Speaking

Communication Code of Ethics

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Key Takeaways

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Article contents

Introduction

Brief History of the Discipline

General Characteristics: Heterogeneity, Interconnectivity, and Historicity

Integrity: Truth, Truthfulness, and Trust

Power: Justice, Normativity, and Force

Relation: Alterity and Compassion

Discussion of the Literature: Five Modes of Ethical Reasoning

Addendum: Some Key Themes of Communication Ethics

Further Reading

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3 Understanding the Ethics of Public Speaking

The Ethics Pyramid

Thinking through the Pyramid

Ethics in Public Speaking

Communication Code of Ethics

National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Individuals, Families, Communities, and Society

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Share This Book

5.2 Ethics in Public Speaking

Communication Code of Ethics

Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision-Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

Share This Book

11 Ethics in Public Speaking

Ethical Public Speaking

Honesty & Truthfulness

Being a Credible Speaker

Establishing Credibility through Speechwriting

Organization

Relationship

The Importance of the Introduction

Establishing Credibility through Delivery

A Proper Start

Pace and Volume

Eye Contact

Body Language

A Proper Ending

On Speaker Credibility—Other Considerations