Resolution Writing

Resolutions are written documents containing your bloc's (a group of countries working together to create a resolution) solutions for the topic. Before a resolution is voted on and is passed, they are referred to as working papers but delegates often use the two interchangeably. During the speakers list and mods, listening to speeches will help you get a sense of who has similar opinions and wants to work with you on a resolution. As such, these documents are written during unmods and voted on during voting bloc. The ultimate goal of committee is to write and pass resolutions.

There are three main sections in a resolution: header, preambulatory clauses, and operative clauses.

Header

There are five elements to the header: the committee, topic, sponsors, signatories, and title/polite opener. The committee and topic are quite straightforward as those are what are provided to you in the background guide. Resolutions are not always required to have names (as you can see the example resolution at the bottom of this article doesn't), but often times funny acronyms and phrases make your resolution more popular. The polite opener is just the committee name italicized and ending with a comma; think of it like the opening of a letter addressed to your committee.

During committee, chairs will specify the number of signatories and sponsor required to be able to present a working paper to the rest of the delegates—this number is dependent on committee size and the chair's discretion

Sponsors and Signatories

A sponsor is someone who is the leader of a bloc and contributed to the resolution in a meaningful way; since chairs often limit the number of sponsors, there is always competition over who is assigned to be a sponsor and being a sponsor is one of the main goals in committee.

Signatories, on the other hand, are delegates who either want to see the working paper debated (not necessarily that you support it) or contributed to the working paper but were not able to be a sponsor. During committee, chairs will usually specify the necessary number of both sponsors and signatories for a working paper to be voted on.

Preambulatory Clauses

Preambulatory clauses are meant to identify the main problems that your solutions (operative clauses) are going to address and recall past action related to the topic. Usually the latter include specific statistics. While they are a part of your resolution, chairs will want you to spend more time on operative clauses as they are considered more important.

Each clause has a present participle phrase at the beginning (you can see a list to the right). In terms of formatting, these phrases are italicized are underlined, while each clause is ended with a comma. These phrases are meant to convey the emotion associated with the fact you state.

For example, there is a big difference between the sentiment behind the following preambulatory phrases:

Deeply concerned about the rising death rates in the United States due to coronavirus.

Noting the rising death rates in the United States due to coronavirus.

Image was taken from bestdelegate.com

Operative Clauses

Operative clauses are the solutions to the problems raised in the preambulatory clauses and are action oriented. The more specific and grounded the plan is, the better your resolution. Within each clause (and its sub clauses) you want to make sure you are addressing who, what, when, where, why, and how.

They are formatting by underlining or italicizing the past-participle phrase (you can find a list to the right), numbering each clause, alphabetizing each sub-clause, and are followed by a semicolon. The last clause should have a period after it.

If there are subclauses attached to the main clause, utilize a colon to introduce them. Make sure the following subclauses make grammatical sense in context of the main clause.

Image was taken from bestdelegate.com

Tips!

Have more operative clauses than preambulatory clauses
Include biased and relevant stats
Make sure your plans are multi-pronged plans
Always address funding
Be as detailed as possible!

Amendments

During committee, amendments allow delegates to add or remove aspects from a working paper/draft resolution once it has been submitted to the chair; this only applies to operative clauses as preambulatory clauses cannot be modified after submission. The chair will often specify if they accept amendments and the timing of when they will.

There are two types of amendments:

Friendly amendments are amendments that the sponsors of a resolution unanimously agree with and can be added to the resolution without any debate.
Unfriendly amendments are amendments that the sponsors do not unanimously agree with, therefore causing it to need to be voted on by the entire committee. Usually it only needs a 2/3 majority to pass, but it depends on what conference you are attending.

Amendments can take multiple forms the most common being the following:

Removing a phrase or clause (ex: Remove clause 14...)
Modifying the wording of a clause (ex: Modify clause 3 to say the following...)
Adding an entirely new clause or subclause (ex: add a subclause under clause 4 that says...)