Concepts of Homeland Security and Homeland Defense and Two Responses

Before completing this forum, make sure to carefully read the below instructions, the forum grading rubric, and the attached forum philosophy and example forum response.

Please provide a response to the following question:

Describe the concept of homeland security and its relationship to homeland defense and national security.

Note there are 5 total forum posts required each week, although your final reply is just an acknowledgement of the Professor Wrap Up at the end of week.

Important — Forum Grading Rubric: Answers the forum question(s) with a relevant, coherent and scholarly initial forum response (>250 words) 20/20; demonstrates lesson comprehension in forums with no more than 10% of content as direct quotes 15/15; employs complete and proper APA in-text parenthetical citations of the required readings for this week 10/10; responses to two classmates initial forum answers (>100 words each) 20/20; quality answer to professor follow-up question 20/20, main forum has APA reference list at end of forum (including the required readings) 5/5; reads and acknowledges professors end of week wrap up forum 10/10.(the attached philosophy and example post also show you where to find the wrap up).

Note: your primary forum post answering the assigned question for the week is due on Thursday by 1155PM EST, and per the syllabus you can lose up to 5 points per day for late work. (but week 1 you can have a little leeway)

Instructions: Craft your main forum answer like a short paper directly answering the topic of the week with a well written response that fully utilizes the required readings for the week with at least 250 words of content (not counting reference list or restating the question). Focus only on the assigned question(s) in a scholarly manner using in-text citations from the required readings (save your personal experiences and opinions for your four forum replies in any given week). Each sentence referring to any ideas or information from any source must be cited properly including the author and year of publication. Do not cite or paraphrase the course lessons — they are just basic information to start the week off and is not meant to be a primary source for you to reference in your reply (to receive full credit you must utilize and cite the listed required readings for that week). You should not be directly quoting from the readings (or other scholarly sources) in your forum post as you only have 250 words to answer the question (paraphrase and synthesize). However, if you do use a direct quote you must also include the page or paragraph number that you are quoting from like (Hoffman, 2006, p.7) or for articles and sources without pages (Renner, 2016, para.15). If you are directly quoting and there is no page number to cite, then you manually count the paragraphs and cite that number. If you do directly quote from a required reading in your post, they can not be more than 10% of your overall post per the APUS “incorporating quotes” guidelines listed on our course syllabus page.

Your posts also are required to have an APA style reference list at the end of your post listing the sources employed (it must be titled “references” and not “works cited” or any other title per APA). For more on APA citations and reference lists see the APUS Style Guide for APA. Forum posts are graded based on demonstrated knowledge of the lesson and weekly readings, relevance, timeliness, as well as clarity and quality of analysis and synthesis. Sources utilized to support answers are to come from the weekly readings, but other credible and scholarly sources may be used to supplement (but not replace) the assigned readings. However, dictionaries, encyclopedias and Wikipedia are not scholarly and are not acceptable sources in college level work. Do not use non-scholarly open websites as sources for your reply to the main forum answer. Make sure all your work in this course is your own original writing and not copied and pasted from a classmate, the internet, or anywhere else.

The order of your posting matters and you must first provide your own initial forum answer for the week before replying to any classmates or the professor. The remaining four replies of the week are more of a free flowing classroom discussion. This offers you opportunities to leverage your relevant personal experiences and express your thoughts and opinions. Respond to at least two other students initial forum answers with a minimum of 100 words each. In your replies to classmates you may offer your opinion on the topic of the week, substantially support or supplement another student’s answer, or even politely disagree with or challenge their forum answer (but do not ask your classmates questions, or do so only as a last resort per the forum philosophy). You will also reply to my follow up question in your own forum string, and also read and acknowledge the Professor wrap up forum I post toward the end of the week. Also, do not be afraid to respectfully disagree with the readings or a classmate where you feel appropriate; as this should be part of your analysis process and employing critical thinking and academic freedom. All forum work must be completed within the academic week. When replying to the main forum answer make sure to include your name in the “topic title” of your initial forum answer/response. Your post must be a text answer directly into the forum area and attachments such as word documents are not acceptable.