MUN guide for beginners: how to prepare for your first conference and what to expect

Start when you get your country: read the background guide, research your country, write your paper and speech, and learn the rules.

Start as soon as you get your country, and spread the work over a few evenings in the two or three weeks before. Only a week to go? Do steps 1, 2 and 4 first: the background guide, your country profile and your speech. Take the steps in this order:

1. 1Read your committee's background guide (some conferences call it a study guide) and note the questions it asks.
2. 2Research your country: its position on each topic, its votes and its allies, on a one-page country profile. The UN's research resources show where to look.
3. 3Write your position paper if your conference asks for one, from the example and template, and send it before the deadline.
4. 4Write your opening speech and time it at one minute.
5. 5Learn the rules of procedure, check your conference's own version, and save the points and motions on your phone for the day.
6. 6Run a mock session with a teacher, a club member or a friend, one of you playing the chair. Then you will have answered roll call and spoken once before the first morning.

An opening ceremony, then committee sessions of speeches, debate and negotiation, and votes and awards on the last day.

After the opening ceremony you spend almost every session in your committee room, where the chairs run the debate from the front. Your committee usually copies a real UN body, such as one of the General Assembly's main committees or WHO, and the conference runs in this order:

At THIMUN-style conferences, lobbying replaces the caucuses: you draft with your allies first, then the committee debates each resolution in turn, and often only some delegations give an opening speech. See how the traditions differ.

Between speeches, delegates send each other short notes. One note to a delegate who shares your aim sets up a meeting before everyone stands up. Many conferences run MUN Command for every committee: there you answer roll call, vote and raise motions on your phone or laptop, and your notes go through the committee chat.

Check in early, meet your neighbours, answer “present” at roll call and get on the speakers' list straight away.

1. 1Check in, then reach your room ten minutes early. At the registration desk you collect your name badge. In the room, find your placard and have your speech ready. Say hello to the delegates beside you: they are the first people you can ask what a motion means.
2. 2Answer roll call. When the chair reads out your country, raise your placard and say “Present”, the safe answer on a first day (why not present and voting). At conferences that run MUN Command, you answer in the app.
3. 3Get on the list early. When the chair opens the speakers' list, raise your placard straight away. The first speeches get the room's full attention, and once you have spoken, the rest feels easier.
4. 4Expect your hands to shake. Almost everyone is nervous before their first speech, including the delegates who look calm.

Your first speech comes from the speakers' list, lasts about one minute and has six parts, from greeting to yield.

Your first speech usually comes on the first morning, from the speakers' list. It lasts about one minute, roughly 100 words. It follows six parts: a greeting, what the topic means for your country, your position with one fact, one proposal, your partners and a yield.

The speech guide has a full example, a fill-in card and what to do if you freeze. One real statement on UN Web TV shows you the pace.

Keep your placard up, get back on the speakers' list, and use the wait to set up your caucus with a note.

In a large committee the chair cannot call on everyone each time. Keep your placard up and keep writing down what others say, because the chairs notice who keeps trying. If the chair keeps passing you over, send a short note saying you have not spoken yet.

Use the wait. Raise your placard again whenever the chair opens the speakers' list. Then ask, in a note, a delegate who will not use all their time to yield it to you.

If you have nothing new to say, skip a turn: most of a resolution is written in the unmoderated caucus, not at the microphone.

Go straight to the countries on your side with one sentence for the draft, and offer the group what it lacks.

When the committee votes for an unmoderated caucus, formal debate stops and everyone leaves their seat to negotiate and write. Four habits help:

1. 1Know your bloc before you stand up. Look first for the countries that share your region or your interests in the topic.
2. 2Bring one idea for the draft, written as one sentence that starts with an action verb such as “Calls upon”. That is an operative paragraph, and it gives the group a reason to want you.
3. 3Put your name on the right paper. Sponsor the one you helped write, and sign the others you only want debated (how the two differ).
4. 4Walk past the other tables before time runs out. Groups split and merge as the caucuses go on.

In many rooms, two or three experienced delegates take over. Do not try to outtalk them: offer what they lack, such as a paragraph, your region's votes or someone to type. At the keyboard, you propose the wording the group then edits. At conferences that run MUN Command, your bloc writes the draft together in its live document editor, everyone typing at once.

Ask the chair what it means with a point of parliamentary inquiry, before the vote.

Sooner or later a delegate says “Motion to divide the question”, and the room votes before you know what it means. Raise your placard and ask the chair with a point of parliamentary inquiry, a question about the rules:

Slip up yourself, by speaking out of turn or naming the wrong motion? The chair corrects you and moves on.

Chairs notice who helps the room agree on a text, not who speaks most, and six mistakes hold first-timers back.

Chairs notice who moves the committee forward: the delegate who proposes a useful caucus, brings two groups together or types the draft. They remember what you added to the text more than how often you spoke, and that is how awards are judged too. At conferences that record awards on mymun, about one first-timer in ten wins one.

• Waiting for the perfect moment. Your first speech needs your position and one idea, nothing more.
• Missing a session. Any award above a commendation needs every session, and the draft moves on without you.
• Reading the background guide back to the room. Everyone has read it, so say what only your country can say.
• Skipping the position paper. If your conference asks for one, your chairs read it before they meet you.
• Inventing a fact. If you do not know a number, say what your country wants instead, because a wrong fact costs more than a missing one.
• Speaking for yourself. Say “Ghana believes”, not “I think”, even when you disagree with Ghana.

Read the papers you saw, update your speech card, then go to the social.

On the evening of day one, read the working papers you saw and pick the one you want to work on tomorrow. Add one line to your speech card that answers what other countries said today.

Then go to the social events. Delegates who have laughed together at dinner negotiate more easily the next morning.

Check your dress code and three rules, then pack your bag the night before.

What to wear to MUN

Most conferences expect Western business attire: a suit jacket or blazer, trousers or a skirt, a collared shirt and smart shoes. Many also welcome national and religious dress. Read your conference's dress code before you buy anything new.

Three rules to check

• Pre-written work. Many North American conferences ban resolution text written before the conference, while THIMUN-style ones expect a draft from home, so check yours. Ideas for a paragraph or two in your notes are welcome everywhere.
• Plagiarism. Copying from a sample resolution, a UN document or another delegate's paper counts as plagiarism: quote briefly and write the rest yourself.
• AI tools. Each conference sets its own rule, so read yours before you use AI.

The night before