It is that time of year again where I drop all my coursework for a solid week to go to New York City to staff GCIMUN. Said event is a large high school-level MUN conference hosted in the Grand Hyatt New York next to the Grand Central Station in Midtown, Manhattan. The opening ceremonies are held in the General Assembly Hall of the UN building. As Tony-nominated actor Leslie Odom Jr. sings, this is the room where it happens. This is where Khrushchev banged his shoe on a delegate desk while screaming: "We will bury you!"

I love staffing this conference for multiple reasons: it is a great networking opportunity to meet with people from all around the world and it is a fantastic time to visit New York City. I'm planning to enter the Hamilton lottery every day I'm in the City, but it's unlikely that I'll get a ticket. Hope springs eternal though.

Fun aside, there is so much work that precedes this conference: one of the pre-conference preparations involves grading position papers written by high school students. Unfortunately, most high school students are not well-trained in writing research papers with well-developed arguments. Still worse, most high school students do not utilize proper grammar, leading to atrocious statements like: "We believe that an effective way to promote economic growth and stability in the region would be to promote an increase in domestic trade as well as the export of many domestic products that way each country's economy can further expand be able to sustain the country." Holy mother of run-on sentences. What wanton usage of prepositions.

I do not claim to have perfect grammar. Nevertheless, I pride myself upon good grammar, even though people consider it the least important aspect of any piece of writing. While substance does matter in a piece, so does style.

My writing style shows the precision with which I deploy words to form meaning. I do not slog through compound sentences, but rather sway through the commas. I don't need the ten-dollar words to show my emotions, although I am capable of deploying words like "diaphanous" and "soporific" when the piece calls for it. (How's that for SAT words?) I include a knowledge of the difference between id est (i.e.) and exempli gratia (e.g.) in my academic writing. I slice and dice my sentences to bring forth my point with sharp clarity. I agree full-heartedly with Kyle Wiens when he announces that "he won't hire anyone with poor grammar."

To me, grammar is deeply indicative of a person's attention to detail, utilization of basic life skills in a productive manner, and ability to follow rules. It is what I hope to show in all my blog posts and through my website. I have rejected over thirty different resumes for my replacement at my place of employment for poor grammar and writing skills alone.

To read papers like these is anathema to me.

If I could write to my delegates before the conference begins, it would currently look something like this: I love you all, and I love Model United Nations even more. But never before have I been tempted so strongly to imbibe an entire bottle of wine in the hope that it will incapacitate me. Reading your papers is what I imagine a near-death experience must feel like: I run the gamut of emotions from misery to elation, while dipping into deep reserves of frustration, fear, and anger. Some of you detail what your country exports. That is not what I hoped for. Some of you explicate wonderfully upon the permanence of Greece's debt as a result of vulture funds. You astound me with your insight. Nevertheless, here is the church, here is the steeple. Open the doors and there lies the truth. The vast majority of you speak English as your first language, and yet you write your papers like it is your third language.

Position papers tend not to be the strongest indicator of committee quality though, and I hope for the sake of everyone involved that the committee quality will be much higher.