Legal and ethical aspects of technical communication: A special issue

AS a teacher of technical and professional writing, I have in recent years become acutely aware of what practicing technical communicators have always known: all communication has effects both intended and unintended. We communicate in dynamic and multidimensional environments and, no matter how hard we try, we sometimes cannot anticipate the consequences of our communications. Two powerful dimensions that we must try to be aware of are the legal and ethical aspects of our communicative activities.