What goes into a Position Paper?
A position paper presents an arguable opinion about an issue. The goal of a position paper is to convince the audience that your opinion is valid and worth listening to. It is very important to ensure that you are addressing key components of the issue and presenting it in a manner that is easy for your audience to understand. It is important to support your argument with evidence to ensure the validity of your claims, as well as to address the main counterclaim(s) to show that you are well informed about both sides. • Abstract: The abstract contains the purpose of the paper. Give a very high-level overview of the content of the paper and include a clear case for action. The intent is to convey to the reader why this is important. Most abstracts are written in the future tense, because the reader hasn’t read the paper yet, so explain what they will read, not what they already know. • Background: describe the issue(s) and give any relevant background. • Position: Include a description o
