HOW TO NOT SCREW UP YOUR LIFE AT SHSMUN Chapter One: The Position Paper

Why The first question you need to answer is why does my committee exist? This single question will guide everything you do before, during, and (if you really like Model UN) after the conference. This question will give you insight to the meaning of your topics as well as the viable solutions that you can pursue.

What is a Suitable Source Imagine the nonfiction section at a library. If you ask the librarian to pick a random book more than likely you will get a reliable source for information. Now imagine that the library will allow anyone with 15 dollars to put anything on the shelves and you're just as likely to pull Russia is an Alien Feeding Ground as you are to pull Migrant Resettlement in the Russian Federation: Reconstructing Homes and Homelands. This is the internet in a nutshell. Great sources include the United Nations website, government run websites, Cia World Fact Book, and factual international news websites.

Use the Topic Guide The topic guide will be give some general information as well as the reason your chair picked the topic. The topic guide will contain information the chair will expect you to know. The topic guide will also give you some basis to do your research as it will have some of the more recent events that pertain to your committee in them.

Venture Out The chair will expect you to know about the information in the topic guide, but you will need to bring more to the table if you want to do well. The best way to do this is to look at all the actions being taken in the world which relate to your topic and then then formulate a solution based on what your country has done, is doing, and—this is the big one—what they could do while still staying in position.

How to Put All This Into a Positon Paper After doing all of these things you should have enough information to complete your position paper. A position paper should be a page to a page and a half long. If you don’t have enough content, you need to do more research. Make sure to answer the questions: what has been done, what my country has done, and what your country wants to see done.