Delegates are strongly encouraged to prepare and submit position papers for the DAYMUNC conference. A distinctive plaque is awarded each year for the best position paper submitted and they may also count for points toward other awards as well. More importantly, preparing the position paper will help you understand the role you are to portray at the conference. 

Style Details:

In the top margin (Word header), please list the delegate name and school on the first line and the country and committee on the second line.

Margins should be set to one inch all around and use 10 point Times Rroman font and single spacing.  Position papers must not exceed one side of one sheet of paper for all topics. Do not leave any blank lines--cram in everything you can as you really have very little space to work with. Write concisely and make every word count.  Each topic must begin on a new line and start with the topic text followed by a colon.

Suggestions:

Position papers serve to suggest how a Member State will act during the conference. They are necessarily prospective, forward looking, statements of national policy.

1. Give your country's formal name once and only in the first line of each topic--afterward use appropriate pronouns or acronyms i.e. "UK" for the United Kingdom.

2. Position statements are generally expressed in plural first person but use care in your choice of verbs. For example, the government of a country can "know," "value," "think" or "believe" but it lacks the capacity to "feel." Third person can also be used to provide sentence variety.

3. It is a good idea to avoid using up space with flat facts (things like population, location, area, etc) as this information is readily available and really is not policy.

4. It is not meaningful to provide historical accounts of what the country has done in the past.  While historical policy may inform us of present policy, what is really desired are clear concise statements of what the county intends to do now.  Thus, long lists of ratified treaties and supported resolutions waste precious space and should be avoided. Rather than say that your country ratified the Genocide Convention, affirmatively state that your country is deeply committed to the eradication of Genocide in any form -- if that's your position.

5. The most important question a great position paper answers is what the country believes is the best solution to the problem being addressed.  Think of it this way--if your country was authoring the working paper and could do anything it wanted, what would that be?

6. Next, discuss what your country would want to see in a draft resolution to garner its support during voting procedure.

7. Mention other alternatives your country might support as well.

8. It may well be that your country's policy is to oppose something and such is a critical component of policy. Generally, in most cases, diplomats will be quite cautious in how these objections would be phrased. So, such objections might be phrased as "remain concerned about" or "is open to frank dialogue" or something like that.

9. Focus your writing on the country's foreign policy. While domestic policy MAY in some cases inform us about foreign policy, this is not always true (for example, the position of the United States on capitol punishment).