Final Exam

The topic I was given was about the madness of Roman emperor Nero. From the sources I found, I learned that Nero had called for the execution of his mother, Agrippina, and his adoptive brother. Nero was a tyrant during his reign of the Roman empire, exiling and executing all his enemies without discretion. He was also known for his extravegance, spending tax dollars for himself, in turn collapsing the Roman economy by creating a large deficit. One of the most famous events during his tenure as emperor was the Great Fire of Rome. Though he provided for displaced victims, some had speculated that he was responsible for the fire, so he used the Christians as a scapegoat. It is said that Nero was playing his lyre and singing songs as he watched Rome burn. Nero is known to be one of the earliest Roman emperors to systematically persecute the Christians.

I first started looking for a source in the library catalog, thinking that looking for one may take a longer time. I found a book entitled Reflections of Nero, by Jas Elsner and Jamie Masters, published by Chapel Hill and released in 1994.

My search on Academic Search Premiere, was much more strenuous. I used the terms "Nero" and "madness", but came up with no results. I tried to broaden my search a little bit more by typing in "Nero" and "Roman Emperor", but did not come up with important information on Nero personally. Alas, I resorted to just using "Nero" alone as a search term, and I sifted through my results. I did not find a whole article on Nero, but a review of a book about him, which described his extravegance and insanity. It was a book review by Trevelyn E. Jones for the School Library Journal .

I had a much easier time looking for a source on the World Wide Web. Using Google, I searched for "Nero", and found an article on "New Advent", a self-proclaimed Catholic encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10752c.htm). I believe this is a reliable source because Nero is somewhat a big part of early Christianity, being one of the first rulers to persecute Christians.

I did not know which disciplinary database to use, being that there is no specific database for ancient history.

Two complex questions I would like to ask is "Why did he use the Christians as the scapegoat for the Great Roman Fire and what reasons did he use?" and "Did Nero's artistic side (music) play a part in his popularity, given that he was poor in domestic and economic issues?"

Self-Assesment Essay

The course objective that stands out to me the most is how to formulate a research question. Before this course, I would stay within the one topic that a teacher would give for a research paper instead of expanding on that one topic. It was easy for me to learn to expand my research question, but before I did not think it was an important part of writing a paper.

Effective use of traditional and new library resources also helped me out greatly in this class. Learning to use the databases that the library offers would be helpful to me in the near future, being that I will be taking two history classes next quarter, and I believe I'll be doing a couple of research papers. The explanation of how the Library of Congress system works was also helpful in that I like to read, and understanding the way the books are organized would help me find books quickly.

Learning to "understand and apply principles of information ethics" was also an important part of this class. Learning to use the citation formats (MLA and APA) and what can or can not be used (copyrights, trademarks, etc.) was important to avoid academic dishonesty.

Being cautious on the websites used for research for research was also helpful. In high school, I would go straight to Google or some other popular search engine to look up information. I would then go right to the top results. I learned from this class that these popular search engines don't necessarily give the most reliable information. Checking the authority and reliability of a website is imperative in research, because putting the wrong information on a research paper would not have good results.