What is a research paper?

Research paper. The mortal enemy of most students. Or the task of cramming in a lot of information into a well organized essay by a certain due date. The idea of a research paper does not freak me out because I know what kind of writer I am. I always wait until the last possible minute on purpose. Junior year I wrote my research paper on my phone on a two hour bus ride going to a baseball game. My entire team made fun of me and some of them panicked for me in fear I would not finish. But knowing how I am, I finished with ease. If only Google Drive had an app sooner, that would have made my complications much simpler. This year I thought about my topic and gave it a week to simmer in my mind. I did not need any sources because I thought of three things I could tie together that I knew a great deal about.

 
But how are they related? Post-apocalyptic wars occur in the future and these are results of what those wars have done. The government systems organized in the aftermath all want to diminish the lesser man's knowledge of pre-war times and the ability to retaliate and overthrow the leaders. The writers and developers all saw a future of similar quality. Many of the goods and valuables are called pre-war but are things that would most likely be considered retro today. Everything pre-war in Fallout 3 is from the 1950s and 1960s but all of the historic references are accurate. The Book Of Eli has two of my favorite movie stars, Denzel Washington and the always fabulous Mila Kunis. In preparation of this essay I went for the harder two forms of art to come up with and I thought I would be creative by using my favorite game. But I also knew that it's merit would be questioned so I had to explain that it is actually very educational. I have learned a lot for things from playing the game because of all of its references. It gives me a huge appreciation as video game player. I went with the future war concept and thought of The Book of Eli because I watched it not that long ago. Then I needed a book and searched on Google for a post-apocalyptic book and did not need to go through the list when I saw 1984 appear first in the alphabetic list. I actually read the book a few years ago and made a comparison between it and Fallout 3 when I got the game but never put much thought into until the paper. I think I wrote a pretty well organized paper for not needing any sources due to my knowledge on all three works.