Prepare for Committee

NY Position Papers

Please pay careful attention to the guidelines and samples in the NMUN Position Paper Guide when drafting and submitting your position papers. Failure to follow the guidelines will result in evaluation points being deducted. Papers submitted after the submission deadline will not be eligible for position paper awards.

Brief Overview

Each committee topic should be addressed in a succinct policy statement representing the relevant views of your assigned country or non-governmental organization (NGO). You should identify and address international and regional conventions, treaties, declarations, resolutions, and programs of action that are relevant to the policy of your country or NGO. You should also include recommendations for action to be taken by your committee. A delegate’s role as a Member State or Observer / NGO should affect the way a position paper is written. To understand these differences, please refer to the NMUN Delegate Preparation Guide.

Format

• See samples on the last pages of the NMUN Position Paper Guide.
• Length must not exceed two pages.
• Margins must be set at 1 inch or 2.54 cm. for the whole paper.
• Font must be Arial, 10 pt. size.
• Justify the text for your paragraphs so the left and right margins both have straight edges.
• Country / NGO and committee name must be clearly labeled on the first page.
• Agenda topics must be clearly labeled in separate sections.
• National symbols (headers, flags, etc.) are deemed inappropriate for NMUN position papers.
• Convert your document to PDF format.

Guidelines

• A position paper should be submitted for each assigned committee.
• The two page position paper should cover all topics in the committee's Background Guide, not a separate paper for each topic.
• Do not submit papers for committees not assigned to your country / NGO.
• No more than two delegates can represent a single country / NGO in a committee. If you assign two delegates to represent a country / NGO on a committee, they submit one position paper jointly, not separate position papers from each individual.
• NMUN position papers are not cited as is required for an academic paper. They are written as if they are a policy statement coming from the foreign ministry. While they may reference UN data or past UN Resolutions, formal citations are not used; however, quotation marks should still appear around direct quotes and informal acknowledgement of any sources quoted is expected.
• Follow your college / university's guidelines related to use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for your research.

Plagiarism

Please note that position papers must be comprised of entirely original writing. Based on their research, delegates need to come up with their own ideas and suggestions, and then frame them in their own words. NMUN will not tolerate plagiarism, including copying from Committee Background Guides. Although United Nations documentation is considered within the public domain, the conference does not allow the verbatim re-creation of these documents. Suspected violation of this policy will be reported to the delegation leader. These papers will not be included for position paper award consideration and they will not be posted.