Crisis Position Papers
Important Note:
To be in consideration for awards in a Crisis Committee, every delegate is required to turn in a Black Paper. Black Papers are reserved only for Crisis Committees, and will have the same due date as standard position papers. As with a Standard Paper, any and all sources you use must be cited!
What is a Black Paper???
A Black Paper will still follow the position paper format of a standard GA or Specialized Paper (1.5 spacing, 12pt, Times New Roman) but will only be required to be a single page, to a page and a half long. The major difference between a Standard Paper and a Black Paper is the content.
A Black Position Paper is reserved to write out your crisis arc and backroom ideas, allowing delegates to formulate their thoughts and ideas for a crisis arc. To reiterate, the writing and content of a Black Position Paper is entirely centered around writing out your crisis arc, with the beginning goals and steps, the buildup and planned ending and effects in committee.
Due to the difficulty many delegates have faced in previous years with finding information for a Standard Position Paper, the Black Position Paper will not only allow for delegates creativity and planning to be more focused on and honed in before the start of conference, but it will also allow for Crisis Committees at MSUMUN to be faster paced due to delegates already having feedback on their ideas, and a more streamlined timeline for their crisis arcs.
Where should I start with writing a Black Paper???
In order to have a good starting point, you must absolutely start with the Background Guide. Though you don’t need to detail your front room ideas and research in your Position Paper anymore, it is still highly important that you develop these ideas first. Having a firm understanding of the situation at hand in your committee AND how you will be handling it in the front room will allow you to be creative in your back room, specifically, how will your crisis ideas be balanced with your front room. Once you are well researched on the topic, be creative!!! The best crisis arcs are the ones that a Crisis Director has either never seen before that blows them away, or the development and innovation of a great idea that breathes new life into the crisis arc. But every good crisis arc that gets a delegate’s arc into the front room can be summarized in one word: why? A crisis arc tells a story, having a clear beginning to the plan, the necessary details and world building to expand upon the idea, justification as to why you are doing this plan, the execution, and inevitably, the followup and continuation of the plan should all be detailed in your paper. Overall, your starting point should be research and having your front room planned out, which will then allow for freedom and creativity to have a nearly fully planned out crisis arc that can be translated into your Black Paper.
What should my structure be in a Black Paper?
Beginning Paragraph: Background on your idea, very similar to the opening of a Standard Position Paper. Should detail your position, your background, and standings on topics in committee and begin detailing your crisis arc, the justification/explanation, and the start to a roadmap for your ideas. This should be very similar to the contents of your first and second crisis notes in committee.
Roadmap/Continued Buildup: The paragraph following the beginning paragraph should be about the who, what, when, why, where and how. All of these should be answered when planning out a full crisis arc, providing detail as to the execution of your first plan, development of ideas that are going to be implemented, and how you will reach and execute the climax of your arc. Should be similar to the contents of your third and fourth notes.
Climax/Followup: This should be going into the climax of your arc and the followup from the climax. This should be the wrap-up and main section/explanation to your arc and the steps needed to take for it, think of this section as a TL:DR Section of the who, what, when, why, when, and how. This section should also detail the primary effects of your arc, such as the effects it will have on the committee. This paragraph should be your fifth notes in committee and beyond.
Closing: Should be very short, 1-2 sentences at the max wrapping up your ideas and laying the groundwork for your entrance into the committee.
The best way to know what we are looking for is looking at the example provided, good luck!