[IMPORTANT] Position Papers, Committee Updates, and Blog Posts, oh my

Hi delegates! I hope everything has been going well for you all and the research papers and conference prep are coming along smoothly. As conference nears (only about a month away!) and deadlines for the papers approach, I just had a few updates and important information to share with you all (this will be pretty long, but please bear with me and read the entire post):

Position Papers

First and foremost, I wanted to remind you all that position paper deadlines are rapidly approaching, so if you haven't yet started your research, it would be a good idea to do so if you want to be eligible for a research award. At BMUN, we have two deadlines for papers - in order to be considered for a research award, all papers (for both topics) must be turned in by 11:59 PM PST on February 5th, and in order to be considered for any committee award, all papers (for both topics) must be turned in by 11:59 PM PST on February 12th. If you have any particularly extenuating circumstances that make these deadlines difficult, however, feel free to reach out to me at hdong@bmun.org, and we can work something out - extensions will be granted at the discretion of the committee as a whole and only for these extenuating circumstances.

Second, please refer to the position paper guidelines detailed here, and use the navigation bar on the left in order to browse through various information regarding position paper overviews, outlines, sample papers, and how to write your paper. These notes are part of a broader resource called BMUN Learn, which is an interactive website with all sorts of cool tips, tricks, and detailed instructional tools that was created by our amazing officer staff and USG of Technology this year. Feel free to check it out to help you in your conference prep, and please read through the position paper guidelines section VERY THOROUGHLY so that your papers follow our standard BMUN guidelines, which will be our expectation as we grade papers. With that being said, although all information will be on that website, I'll outline below some particular things that we'll be looking for:

1. Please explicitly label your headings for the four sections (Past and Current International Action, Country's Position, Proposed Solutions, and Questions to Consider). This will expedite our grading and make it easier for us to give you all feedback, while simultaneously allowing you to organize your thoughts better, which is important in any written work. 
2. Formatting: please submit your paper in the .doc, .docx, or .pdf file format, with 1 inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman font, and a 5 page minimum and 10 page maximum per topic (not including works cited/bibliography). Although I know you are all excellently researched on the topic, please do NOT go over 10 pages; a detailed paper is always appreciated, but it is just as important to write succinctly to convey your ideas, a skill which will be important in all of your future endeavors. If you do end up going over 10 pages, we will stop reading after the 10th page and grade your work based on those 10 pages. Cite ALL of your sources, including in-text citations, and do those citations in MLA format. When you submit, make sure to follow the submission protocol detailed on the website linked above. 
3. A little tip: in general, the proposed solutions is the most important part of any research paper. Although I won't disclose any information about how grading works, I will tell you all that this is the most heavily weighted section, and is the section that I personally am most interested in reading. A few reminders: make sure your solutions are in line with your country's policy, and are SMART. What's SMART you ask? Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound. In particular, I ask that you pay the most attention to "actionable" and "realistic" - in the end, solutions must be feasible and implementable. Ask yourself HOW this solution will be implemented. In addition, when writing your "Questions to Consider" section, make sure that this section is based on actual country policy and is well-researched; we will be looking for citations and information that extend beyond just "I think" and "I feel." 
4. One more tip: do NOT cite the topic synopsis. Although in another universe, I would be flattered if you did, my word on the matter is not the holy grail, and I encourage you to do your own extra research on the topics, which will demonstrate to us creativity and initiative. Although you may allude to some of the information I presented in the synopsis, your original research is what will stand out most to all of us as a committee. Show us something new - perhaps even something that none of us have considered. 
5. Finally, do NOT plagiarize. If you are unsure of what plagiarism includes, I direct you to this link here; note that plagiarism does include paraphrasing. Plagiarism will remove you from contention for ANY kind of award, both research and committee, and may result in disciplinary action from your advisor, so it's best not to try. 

Whew, okay that was a lot. Now let's move onto some other things:

Committee Updates

As I'm sure you are aware, and for those who aren't yet, our committee this year will be very focused on sustainability for the future. As such, we hope to take our committee in an interesting direction this year. Although we will adhere to standard BMUN Bloc B procedure, I do want to give you a heads up to expect several crises for both topics throughout conference. If you aren't well-versed with crisis - fear not! We will not be using any sort of crisis procedure, but instead, we hope that you will integrate these crises into your resolutions. Each of these crises are events that we as a committee anticipate will happen between now and 2030, and each of these crises are meant to draw your attention to what very well may be the future. Keep in mind also, that most of the SDGs have 2030 as their target year. This won't require any extra research on your part as far as the position paper goes, but we hope that when conference comes around, you will be well-versed in the topics and quick to think on your feet. 

Blog Posts

Blog posts are something that is unique to BMUN and a great platform of communication between delegates and chairs, and are managed collectively by the committee chairs. Every week in the weeks leading up to conference, Octavio, Annalise, Habiiba, and I will each be posting on the blog with interesting articles, news updates, and committee and conference updates. We encourage you all to comment on these posts with your own ideas and research! Don't worry, this isn't mandatory at all, and it won't be graded in anyway whatsoever (it won't even count for brownie points), but I personally think it would be a great way for us as a collective committee, both delegates and chairs, to interact with each other and start a discourse of the two topics. It'd be a great way for all of us to become exposed to unique and novel ideas that we may not have thought of, but someone else has, or for us to learn about interesting proposals that we've never considered or see which countries we might choose to align with. But again, don't worry too much about it if you're busy - we understand that high school can get pretty hectic. 

As always, if any of you have any questions or concerns about literally anything at all, please feel free to email me at hdong@bmun.org. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to seeing you all in conference very soon!