TAA Code of Ethics

Revised July 13, 2009

Preamble

Textbook and academic authors, as educators and communicators, acknowledge and adhere to the ethical obligations of promoting the goals of academic writing and publishing. As members of this profession, authors must promote and defend the mutual responsibilities of the discipline in which they write along with those of the publishers of their work. As members of this organization, therefore, we commit ourselves to encouraging, reinforcing, and protecting the highest levels of ethics within our discipline, our profession, and the publishing industry.

Public/Readers

  1. Textbook and academic authors shall be dedicated to providing current, competent subject matter in their written materials, based upon the highest standards of scholarship and research pertinent to their subject matter.
  2. Textbook and academic authors shall strive for the highest standards of writing quality and shall endeavor to produce work that is understandable, clear, and pedagogically sound.
  3. Textbook and academic authors shall present the information in their texts, books, and articles with accuracy and balance.
  4. Textbook authors shall strive to represent the diversity of their readership in the content of their work, including such representation in their examples, illustrations and exercises.
  5. Textbook authors should be aware of and refer to key moral issues in their field.

Academic Community

  1. Textbook and academic authors, or teams of authors, shall write with integrity, following recognized principles and utilizing sound techniques.
  2. Textbook and academic authors shall accurately report and appropriately give credit to other sources utilized in their works, including authors quoted or whose ideas have been highly influential.
  3. Textbook and academic authors shall bear responsibility for material appearing under their name, not permitting their name to appear on works they did not write or contribute to substantially, and have the right to remove their name from works to which they did not contribute or of which they did not approve the content.
  4. Text and academic authors shall not resell or recommend resale of examination copies of current editions of textbooks, but shall retain such copies for their personal use, donate them to an academic library, or dispose of them according to the guidelines of the publisher.

Discipline

  1. Textbook and academic authors shall respect the freedom of instructors in choosing educational materials. Moreover, textbook and academic authors will not participate in providing compensation to schools or instructors for the adoption of their work.
  2. Textbook and academic authors shall continue to acquire, apply and advance knowledge by remaining current in their discipline.
  3. Textbook and academic authors shall not require their own published material to be used when the primary purpose is personal profit.

Publisher

  1. Textbook and academic authors shall deal honestly with publishers, honor their contracts and provide materials to publishers in a timely manner.
  2. Textbook and academic authors shall expect publishers to treat authors with fairness, honoring conditions in contracts, promptly paying royalties and honoraria, and acting in a timely manner on manuscripts.
  3. Textbook and academic authors shall provide to publishers a carefully prepared manuscript and shall expect in return publishers to provide timely and competent review of manuscripts, making no substantive changes in a manuscript without the author’s permission.
  4. Textbook and academic authors shall normally decline to review a manuscript or publication when the work would compete with the reviewer’s own published work.
  5. Textbook and academic authors shall avoid conflict of interest with other authors when agreeing to review manuscripts for publication or publications for prizes.
  6. Textbook and academic authors, as educators and communicators, acknowledge and adhere to the ethical obligations of promoting the goals of academic writing and publishing. As members of this profession, authors must promote and defend the mutual responsibilities of the discipline in which they write along with those of the publishers of their work. As members of this organization, therefore, we commit ourselves to encouraging, reinforcing, and protecting the highest levels of ethics within our discipline, our profession, and the publishing industry.