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Position Paper Guidelines

Introduction

Position Papers are tools for researchers to discuss aspects of their research on globalization and autonomy that will be of potential interest to a broad public. Ideally, these papers should grow out of team member's research for the project, but may be informed by some of the debates in your own discipline or by your professional position. Authors should make clear from what position they will be arguing. Position Papers may take a stronger argumentative or normative focus than a more academic publication like a chapter in one of the books in the project's Globalization and Autonomy Series or a Compendium Research Article. Possible examples might include:

In these respects, Position Papers will provide team members with an opportunity to discuss subject matter relevant to core questions of the project, in a format that will be accessible to the broad publics who are the focus of the Compendium.

Guidelines

The intended audience for the Position Papers will be the same as for the Research Summaries and Glossary Articles: senior high school and undergraduate students along with educators, policy-makers, and the media.

Position Papers are intended to be "stand-alone documents." By this term, we mean that the reader of the paper will be able to learn about the nature of the issue or question that arises out of your research without consulting a chapter in one of the academic volumes or a research article in the Compendium. They should be written with the assumption that the reader may never consult any academic documents on the given issue.

Position Papers will not be peer reviewed. Rather, they will be read carefully by the Compendium Editors for matters of style, clarity, and appropriateness for the intended audience. Suggestions for improvements will come from the Editors.

With this background in mind, Position Papers should be written according to the following guidelines.

  1. You should write in a language and style accessible to a broad and largely non-academic audience. The language should be at a Grade 12 reading level and non-academic in tone. Academic jargon is to be avoided.

  2. Using this kind of language, the summary should tell the reader:
    • What is the key globalization and autonomy matter at issue?
    • Why is this issue or subject an important one?
    • What is your position on the matter or issue? What is the justification or argument in support of this position?
    • (Where appropriate) what are the implications of your position?
  3. If you need to use a key concept or reference a particular organization, event, place, or person and you think that a general audience may not be familiar with this aspect, you should provide a glossary article for it, if it does not already exist.

  4. Keep the length of your position paper to a maximum of 10-12 pages or about 2,000 to 2,500 words. Of course, Position Papers can be shorter than this length and we would expect many of them to be shorter publications.

  5. Position Papers should contain a minimal number of citations, if any at all. They may be accompanied by a list of up to five suggested readings, musical works, art forms etc. Essential citations should follow author-date format. Examples can be found here:

  6. Please suggest up to five keywords that describe the content of your Position Paper.

Please send all correspondence related to submission of Position Papers to the Compendium Editors at: [email protected].