United Nations Editorial Manual Online

Drafting guidelines

Reports should be action-oriented and limited to:

1. A brief discussion on organizational and procedural matters.
2. Recommendations, including resolutions and decisions adopted and draft resolutions and decisions recommended for adoption by the parent body.
3. Policy recommendations emanating from expert groups, panels, round tables and multi-stakeholder dialogues.
4. New developments, findings and recommendations, particularly for recurrent reports.

Reports should not include:

1. A summary of statements made at opening and closing meetings, unless pertinent to the conclusion reached.
2. Summaries of statements by individuals; a list of speakers for each item can be included instead.
3. A general summary of statements under each item.
4. Analysis of information provided, unless required to support policy findings.
5. A lengthy discussion of organizational and procedural matters.
6. Repetition of already published texts or repetition of texts with only minor changes; an exception is made for draft resolutions that are submitted to an intergovernmental body but not adopted, since such texts are needed for the parliamentary record.
7. Quotations from United Nations documents, unless legislative authority is being cited.
8. Extraneous information that does not contribute to deliberations.

 
Supplements to the Official Records of the General Assembly

Addendum to a supplement

Buff cover

An addendum to a supplement to the Official Records of the General Assembly will have a buff cover unless it consists only of a statement of programme budget implications.

Supplement number/symbol

If the addendum contains only material additional to the main report which could have been incorporated in it, then the supplement number is identical to that of the parent document; no letter is added, e.g. Supplement No. 25 not 25A. The symbol is A/.../25/Add.1. In a footnote or other reference, the supplement and the addendum may be referred to together:

Official Records of the General Assembly, Nth Session, Supplement No. 25 (A/.../25 and Add.1).

If the addendum is an entirely separate, self-contained report, as in the case of the various reports of the Board of Auditors, then a letter is added to the supplement number: Supplements Nos. 5A, 5B, 5C, corresponding to Add.1, Add.2, Add.3, and so on. Example of footnote:

Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 5L (A/59/5/Add.12)

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