Writing: An expression of trust and commitment

I’ve heard it said that reading is an expression of trust and commitment. Truthfully, I had no idea what that meant until this year. I guess I always took the expression too literally. I would think to myself, “That makes zero sense. When you want to tell someone you trust them or you want a commitment from someone, you shake hands or buy the girl a diamond ring. You don’t sit down and read with them. That is so dumb. That is really dumb.” However, this semester amidst all the reading and writing I’ve been required to do, I have finally grasped the meaning of this phrase. When we read the words of another person, we put trust in and make a commitment with that individual. We trust that the words they have written are expressed honestly and are their unique thoughts. We make a commitment to ponder and respect their ideas.

Trust and commitment are two-way interactions. Because the reader places such great faith in the writer, the writer must hold up their end of the deal by upholding the ethics of writing. Many times writers fail to uphold these ethical standards because they do not understand what they are. Being an ethical writer means more than simply not publishing another’s work as your own. Plagiarism is the extreme. It also means that you as the author support your own writing. It is unethical for a writer to write about something that they do not personally support or believe in. When a reader commits to reading an author’s product, they assume that the author believes the words that they have written. They trust that the author is a moral individual. If any breach of this pattern of trust or commitment is broken, the writer has violated the ethics of writing.

Throughout the current research process for my Issues Paper, I have found many opportunities to put ethics into effect. First, I made sure that the topic I was researching was something that I cared about. Then, I strove to carry out ethical research. Now, as I am beginning to write my paper, I am sure to give credit where it is due to other others who have also done their best to be ethical. If each and every one of us was ethical in our writing, the power of the written word would be even greater than it already is. Trust and commitment between reader and writer would increase, opening the way for new thoughts and ideas.