The work of the General Assembly is organized in sessions. The regular session usually begins annually in September, on Tuesday of the third week in September. The tendency now is for the session to be suspended in late December, and then reconvene as required the following year, concluding before the next session begins.  

The Assembly may meet in Special sessions at the request of the Security Council, a majority of member states, or, if the majority concurs, of a single member, at any time during the year as occasion may require in order to address matters of special concern.  

Emergency special sessions shall be called within 24 hours if requested by the Security Council
on the vote of any nine Council members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations.
Such meetings take place if the Security Council fails to act because of lack of unanimity of its permanent members.
In that case, the General Assembly may deal with a situation threatening or involving a breach of peace. This is a procedure set forth in the preamble to by resolution 377(V), "Uniting for Peace", adopted by the General Assembly in 1950 during
the Korean war. 

The regular sessions are numbered consecutively from the first session 1946 onwards. The special sessions and emergency special sessions carry their own numbering series. 

At the beginning of each regular session, the Assembly holds a general debate, often addressed by heads of state and government, in which member states express their views on the most pressing international issues. 

Some issues are considered only in plenary meetings, while others are allocated to one of the six main committees. In plenary, there are always elections to the Councils and the passing of resolutions always take place in plenary, while the Assembly can decide for every item whether it should be considered in plenary meetings for political or practical reasons or by the committees. Political issues of greater concern discussed by the plenary carry more propaganda value.