From: Your ME 481 Lab Advisor

Mechanical Engineering – Cal Poly Memo

To: ME481 – Spring 2009

Date: 2 April 2009

Re: Ethics Case Study Memo Assignment

Ethics Case Study Memo Assignment:

This assignment requires that you put yourself in a professional situation where an ethical decision has to be made. Write your assessment of the situation in the form of a memo to your boss, colleague, or customer depending on the situation. Discuss in the memo your analysis of the situation with reference to the Code of Ethics for Engineers (National Society of Engineers, 2006) or other applicable code.

In your memo: 1. Tell me who you are writing to in the “to.” Tell me who you are in the “from.” 2. Only briefly discuss the scenario. Assume that the receiving party knows common details. 3. Clearly tell your recipient the ethical problem. 4. Discuss what alternatives you considered. 5. Discuss your selected solution and the reasons for your decision. 6. Discuss how your solution pertains to either the NSPE or ASME Code of Ethics (or another code of ethics if applicable). 7. Conclusion: What action do you want the recipient to take? Why did you write the memo?

This should be in professional memo format (Microsoft Word has many to choose from such as this one), 1-2 pages single spaced (no more than 2 pages of memo!). This is an individual assignment. Do not use any of the case studies used for the group assignment. Do not use the same case study as your team members.

Due in class 4 May.

Make sure to reference your case study in either the body of the document or in a footer. In addition, attach the case study (first page only) to the back of your memo for my reference.

Websites with case studies: http://ethics.tamu.edu/pritchar/an-intro.htm http://onlineethics.org/eng/cases.html http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/olc_linkedcontent/bioethics_cases/index.html http://ethics.sandiego.edu/resources/cases/HomeOverview.asp http://www.asme.org/NewsPublicPolicy/Ethics/Ethics_Center.cfm

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