Why is the PAP Code of Ethics so badly written?
Your entire professional life will be largely governed by a badly written document.
I think it’s no secret that the PAP Code of Ethics is essentially some rephrasing the APA Code of Ethics (they explicitly named APA as a basis, but tried to dilute its huge influence by also naming other psychological orgs).
But what’s frustrating to me when (re)reading the document is how bad its rephrases are. Much of the rephrases IMNSHO either don’t make sense (like some words are just transferred to another parts of the sentence—uhm why?) or effectively make the sections more confusing/vague while trying to convey the same point as that of APA’s.
Another frustrating part, besides the typos, is that some sections prompt you to “see” other sections that are not found within the document. They either point you to visit an existing section labeled in the wrong way (labeled, for example, as 10.10 instead of X.J) or to sections that are nonexistent (they have either stricken those sections out of the APA Code or merge them other sections).
As undergrads, we were intensely taught about good writing, proper citations, proofreading, etc. But our own Code of Ethics (or at least the way in which it was written), the importance of which I need not emphasize, seems to fail as a good example, let alone an aspiration.
Anw, that’s just my badly written rant, partly in hopes to spark some discussions. Idk if this is allowed in this sub.