THE ARMENIAN QUESTION: SCHOLARLY ETHICS AND METHODOLOGY

Abstract

Following the assassination of the renowned Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, two Turkish authors, Temel Demirer and Sibel Özbudun, published an article dealing with the Armenian Question entitled “1,500,001st Ahbarik”. While it is understandable and necessary to express moral outrage over the horrible murder of Dink, the authors’ article goes beyond this point, and engages in the polemics over the tragic incidents of 1915. Moreover, the quotations and footnote citations presented by the authors in their article raises certain ethical questions since on close inspection, these reveal that the authors have not actually consulted or checked the sources they cite. Rather the two authors copied the references from different authors with citation errors and hence without proper acknowledgment. This article will discuss these points by presenting specific examples.