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Instructions for Course Of Action College Essay Examples

Title: Course of Action Decision Brief

Total Pages: 16 Words: 4284 References: 1 Citation Style: APA Document Type: Essay

Essay Instructions: I will upload 3 documents that will help. The powerpoint I have uploaded has 1 COA completed, I need a second COA developed within the same powerpoint. I know a powerpoint is not "pages" so I have tried to pay based on the amount of words that is needed to develop the remaining slides for the powerpoint.

Course of Action Decision Brief: Present key elements of the mission analysis, develop two valid COAs, analyze and compare COAs, explain the probability of success of the recommended COA, develop a COA decision briefing, and recommend a COA for joint force commander (JFC) decision.
Here are some questions the students may want to answer concerning the PowerPoint Presentation:

Mission analysis-

Did the student:
• Follow the joint mission analysis format process IAW JP 5-0?
• Use “Design” insights and products?
• Update their information if it changed during COA development?


COA development-

Did the student:
• Match forces and capabilities to the essential tasks identified during mission analysis?
• Determine the military conditions required to allow those forces the freedom to accomplish the essential tasks?
• Determine forces capable of setting those conditions?
• Sequence the actions required to set the conditions and the actions required to accomplish the essential tasks?
• Create a COA sketch (picture) of the mission area to depict or visualize the actions geographically and continue to depict elements of the COA on additional phases of the COA sketch?
• Use the synch matrix provided to sequence the tasks?
• Relate their actions to the decisive points and COGs identified during mission analysis?
• Use the synch matrix to account for operational-level enemy activity?
• Appropriately phase JTF actions?
• Establish necessary operational control measures?
• Review force structure analysis to determine the appropriate command and control relationships for the COA?
• Refer to mission analysis frequently and update it as appropriate?

COA decision briefing-

Did the student:
• Use the COA decision brief format provided?
• Use the building of the brief as an opportunity to validate COA or as an “in progress review”?
• Adequately convey all pertinent points of COA analysis concepts?

Excerpt From Essay:

Title: The roots of terrorism

Total Pages: 3 Words: 945 Works Cited: 3 Citation Style: MLA Document Type: Research Paper

Essay Instructions: The Roots of Terrorism
This week’s assigned readings have presented various causes for why terrorist events occur. Political, cultural, economic, societal, and religious motivations have all been cited as root causes for terrorist activity. For this assignment, select the motivator (culture, economy, society, or religion) that you think has had the greatest impact on terrorism throughout history. Then address the following:.

Summarize the reasons why you think this cause has been the most influential in spawning terrorist activity.
Recommend a course of action to mitigate this cause.
Extrapolate what the greatest impediments to this course of action are.
Predict whether the cause you selected will remain the most important throughout the immediate future.
The paper must be at least three pages in length and formatted according to APA style. You must use at least one scholarly resource other than the textbook to support your claims. Cite your sources within the text of your paper and on the reference page. For information regarding APA, including samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar.

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Essay Instructions: Prepare a 3 page paper describing the security monitoring activities that should be conducted in an organization with both internal IT (payroll, human resources, inventory, general ledger, and so on) and e-commerce (Internet sales and marketing) applications. The paper will include the rationale supporting each monitoring activity you propose and any recommended course of action to be taken when a significant risk is identified.

Excerpt From Essay:

Title: Morality and the Profressional Life values at work

Total Pages: 4 Words: 1035 Sources: 0 Citation Style: MLA Document Type: Research Paper

Essay Instructions: IMPORTANT: I give below directions as to how you should apply the Case
Resolution Model (CRM) to a case.
The directions I give sometimes expand on what your textbook says, and
sometimes tells you to do something differently than what the textbook says.
Please make sure that you follow my directions. If I tell you to do something
differently than the book does, please ignore the book and do what I say.
Among other things, this means that objecting to my grading with “but the book
does it like this on page XYZ” is not a valid objection.
You will see as you read below that I am using the textbook’s CRM as a steppingstone
to something I consider to be better and clearer. So to make this even more
evident, let us call this new and hopefully improved model ‘UCRM’. From now on I
will be asking you to apply the UCRM, not the CRM, to cases.
Below, you will find directions about what to do at each of the 8 steps of the
UCRM. When you are doing this, please make sure that you name and/or number
the step you are doing. I do not want to guess what you are doing at any point! I
should be able to say, at any point in your assignment, something like “the
sentence I am reading now is part of step X”, whatever number that “X” might be.
I will not grade assignments that do not follow these instructions.
(1) Present the Problem
Here you will lay out the moral problem that needs to be solved as concisely as possible.
Do not spend a lot of time on the facts of the case since you will do this anyhow while
“collecting the facts” in the next section.
(2) Collect the facts
Each moral case has to be evaluated by looking at two things. First, one needs to
determine the facts of the case. And then one has to look at the values or evaluative
principles that can be brought to bear on these facts.
If you compare moral evaluation to a court case, this is the point at which the prosecutor
presents the jury with all the facts and evidence that pertains to the case (for example
“Mr. X. was wounded, the bullet that did the wounding ballistically matches the gun
found in the bushes, and the gun belongs to Mr. Y”).
In this imaginary court case, there is as yet no discussion of the legal principles (laws) that
will be applied to these facts.
In similar fashion, in this section, you need to list all and only the facts that seem to be
relevant to the moral evaluation of the case. Do not yet go into the values or the
evaluative principles; these you will investigate in the next section.
(3) List the relevant values
This is where, in a court case, the judge will inform the jury about the laws that apply to
such a case, and the various outcomes prescribed by the law: “If the facts indicate that
the defendant did commit the crime, and that he did this with pre-meditation, then your
verdict will be that he is guilty of first-degree murder. And if you find the defendant
guilty of first degree murder, then you can give him a prison sentence between 22 to 35
years, etc.”
Your book is not very clear about the nature of the values you are supposed to bring in at
this stage. Nevertheless, what they seem to have in mind are values such as beneficence
and respect, namely the main values they focus in the text (see p. 75, the section called
“Articulating Holism through the Values Approach”). Consequently, what I would like
you to do is to ultimately tie in any value you mention to one of these values. For
example, if you think that the privacy of individuals is a value at stake in a given case,
then I would expect you to tie this value to the value of respecting persons.
To make sure that’s you do not ignore this, and to make it easier on me to follow your
evaluation, I will require you to boldface the primary value or values you invoke in this
paragraph. For example, if one of the primary values you invoke is respect, then I expect
you to boldface its just like I have done in this sentence.
(4) Explore the options
We are now at the heart of the UCRM. This is where you’re supposed to apply the
theories you investigated in Chapter 5 to the case at hand, and decide which theory
prescribes which course of action.
I am hereby limiting the number of theories you need to apply to just three:
Consequentialism
Duty theory
Virtue theory
All three of these theories have to be applied; you cannot choose to apply some
other theory in place of one of these. Since some people in the past have said that they
have not understood what this means, I repeat: you have to apply Consequentialism,
Duty Theory, and Virtue Theory??"no exceptions. After you have finished your
assignment, go back to step four and take another look at it. If you have not applied one of
these theories, then you’re guaranteed to lose points: take remedial action.
If you are interested, you’re more than welcome to apply additional theories. But no
matter how many additional theories you apply, this will not replace the points you will
lose if you have failed to apply one of the theories mentioned above.
Here is how you should apply each theory:
Consequentialism: as you know from your textbook and the additional material I put
online, consequentialism is a comparative theory. It is a theory that compares more than
one course of action, and chooses the one which is optimal (optimal according to the
criteria of consequentialism, not your or my criteria. This is very important to keep in
mind). So the first thing you need to do is determine at least two alternative courses of
action one can follow, and tell me clearly what these are.
When you have more than one course of action outlined, you then need to consider the
positive and negative consequences of each course of action. When you’re doing this, you
need to make sure that you consider the consequences to all those affected by the course
of action you are considering. For example, if you’re a police officer and the course of
action you’re contemplating is to shoot a criminal, you need to consider how your action
will affect the significant others of the criminal (among other things).
Once you’re finished with listing the positive and negative consequences of the courses of
action you have focused on, you then need to compare these results and determine which
course of action maximizes utility (take another look at the “Notes on Consequentialism”
document I put online if you do not remember what “maximizing utility” means). I
emphasize, “compare”. If you just say that one course of action maximizes utility
without explaining why it has better utility in comparison with other courses of
action, you are not responding correctly to what I am asking.
So here is what I suggest: I will give the below the framework of how I expect you to
apply consequentialism and if you wish, you can copy and paste this in your assignment.
You can then fill in the details.
Course of Action 1: (here you write the description of the first course of action)
Affected parties: (here you list all those affected by this course of action)
Positive consequences: (here you describe the positive consequences of this course
of action)
Negative consequences: (here you describe the negative consequences of this
course of action)
Course of Action 2: (here you write the description of the second course of action)
Affected parties: (here you list all those affected by this course of action)
Positive consequences: (here you describe the positive consequences of this course
of action)
Negative consequences: (here you describe the negative consequences of this
course of action)
Outcome: The Xth course of action maximizes utility because (here you explain why you
think that the overall utility of the Xth course of action is more than all the others).
Duty Theory: Your textbook’s discussion of Duty Theory is very sketchy. Its biggest
weakness is that it doesn’t tell you how one determines what one’s duties are. The
authors make it sound like one can pull duties off the air.
I cannot remedy this without changing the nature of this course drastically. So, I will let
you pull duties off the air, so to speak. But there are two things I would like you to do:
a. (a) Distinguish legal duties from moral duties, and distinguish both from
company policy. In other words, do not assume that a given company’s policy
imposes any legal or moral duties on you (in fact it is sometimes possible for a
company policy to be both illegal and immoral). And do not assume that a legal
duty is a moral duty??"it is possible that some laws are immoral. Whether one
has the moral duty to obey immoral laws is a controversial issue.
So ignore the company policy (if there are any), and the legal duties (if there
are any), and focus on the moral duties. Don’t even mention legal and
policy-based duties (unless you really think that they are relevant to the moral
duties). This is a course on ethics, not the law. Of course, we hope that
company policies are both legal and moral, and we hope that all of our laws are
morally acceptable. This is the ideal we all strive for. But we should keep in
mind that we cannot assume that we or anyone else has reached this ideal. In
any case, since this is a course about morality, we should keep that foremost
in our minds. Morality is primary, and it ought to inform both the legal system
and managerial policy.
a. (b) Even if you are pulling duties off the air, make sure that you are invoking
the widest general duty you can. What I mean is this: if I invoke a duty such as
not using too much salt in my cooking, this is presumably because I have a
wider duty to serve healthy meals. And the duty to serve healthy meals
presumably derives from a wider duty such as not causing unnecessary harm
to others and myself. When invoking a duty, make sure to invoke the widest,
the most inclusive duty--and then explain why that duty prescribes a specific
course of action.
So your explanation should be something like this: the duty not to harm others
unnecessarily means that I should not be cooking meals with too much salt,
because too much salt is unnecessary and harmful to people in the long run.
Finally, do not diminish the complexity of the cases we are dealing with by just
mentioning one duty. When we are dealing with moral problems, in 99% of the cases, we
are dealing with a clash of multiple duties (this, from the perspective of duty theory).
There is more than one duty in the picture and the real difficulty of the case is to
determine which one gains the upper hand. So, mention all the duties that are relevant to
the case and explain which one gets priority and why. Do not ignore the “why”!
Also, if and when you invoke a duty, make sure to consider all the responsibilities that
duty places on the person in question. So, say you invoke the duty of loyalty when
discussing what a soldier should do in a morally complex situation in war. Let us say her
commander has just told her to torch an enemy village. Here, loyalty places
responsibilities on her not only vis a vis her immediate commander, but also the larger
military institution of which she is a part. Maybe loyalty to the commander would
suggest that she follow the order, but loyalty to the larger military institution would
suggest that she disobey the order as going against the moral code of that institution.
Remember that life is rarely as simple as movies and TV tend to suggest.
Virtue Theory: I expanded on your book’s treatment of Virtue Theory in the document
called “Notes on Virtue Theory” in the week 4 folder. What I need to remind you here is
this: just like duty theory, virtue theory suffers from the problem of determining where
virtues come from. Once again, I will let you invoke any virtue you wish, as long as you
follow the policy I outlined in (b) above under Duty Theory. That is, always invoke the
widest virtue possible, and show how it prescribes a specific course of action.
One common mistake in “applying” Virtue Theory is to forget to invoke any virtues.
People quite often say something like “Virtue theory says we should do what a virtuous
person (or, a person who wishes to do the right thing) should do and so they should do
X”. But notice that no virtue has been mentioned??"so we have no idea why X should be
done by a “virtuous person”!
Just as above, do not diminish the complexity of the cases we are dealing with by just
mentioning one virtue--mention all the virtues that are relevant to the case and explain
which one gets priority and why. Do not ignore the “why”!
Hence make sure you specifically mention the virtues you think are relevant to the case
(such as honesty, courage, etc.), explain which of them gets priority, and also explain what
course of action that virtue prescribes.
Read the last paragraph of the section on Duty Theory, except thinking now in terms of
virtues as opposed to duties. Remember that the same virtue can suggest conflicting
courses of action (just like duties) in the same situation.
(5) Assess the rightness or wrongness of various outcomes
I believe that this step of the CRM confuses people rather than helping them resolve a
moral problem. So I am canceling this step. SKIP STEP 5, but keep the original
numbering of the others steps.
(6) Decide
Keep this short. Just tell me what you have decided to do as concisely as you can.
Try to avoid being too wishy-washy here. For example, the authors’ prescription for
Abdul on page 156 of your textbook is too wishy-washy. They say Abdul should look
for some creative way to educate the clients. What creative way? Can you imagine a
general giving an order that goes “Find a creative way to flank the enemy!”? Or a
cookbook that says “…and then find a creative way to put all the ingredients together”?
So please try to be much more precise in your prescriptions. For example, “Abdul should
mistakenly forward to the client some links to newspaper articles about security problems
of firms that tried to cut too many corners. By doing this, he can further inform the
owners of the risk they are taking without appearing to do so.”
(7) Defend
This is where you defend your decision. You try to come up with all the morally relevant
reasons for choosing the way you did. You can appeal to the prescriptions of the theories
you applied in step four, you can appeal to other moral reasons or values you hold. If you
happen to be taken by one of the theories discussed in the textbook, including the ones
you applied, feel free to say that you are adopting theory X, and for that reason you
would abide by its prescription. In other words, if while applying the three theories
in step 4, you fall in love with one of them, you can give priority to its support
(while bringing in other support as well). If you have decided on a course of action
prescribed by none of the theories, please make sure that you explain which moral value(s)
influence your decision.
(8) REFLECT
In this step, whatever else you do, do not forget to consider possible objections to your
chosen course of action (the decision you described in step 6). This means (a) stepping
into the shoes of a potential critic and trying to find the biggest problem with your
decision, and (b) stepping back into your own shoes and trying to find a response to that
criticism.
Performing the mental shift described in (b) will be the very difficult for most of you.
It requires you to step out of your own shoes and to step into the shoes of the opposing
viewpoint, so to speak. You are then supposed to attempt to undermine your own
position by finding the weakest point in it. This is not something most of us are used to
do in the daily course of our lives; but it is a crucial component of critical thinking and
intellectual honesty. Sometimes, it enables us to strengthen our position (by finding a
response to the objection, as requested in (b) )??"sometimes, it shows us that we have
been holding an untenable position and hence enables us to avoid a mistake.
Please make sure you are not presenting objections that are transparently faulty (and
hence easy to answer). If you are capable of easily detecting a problem with what you give
as an objection, this means that you can most probably devise an improved objection that
avoids such transparent mistakes.
Here is a short example to illustrate: (In the example, I am not trying to make the
arguments flawless??"that is not the point. The point is to illustrate the argumentobjection-
response structure I describe above):
I decided in step 6 that Miss Jones should apologize to her subordinate.
{This is your decision. Now we change shoes and start (a)}
One might object to this as follows: if a person of higher rank apologizes to a subordinate, this is
tantamount to losing all credibility and workplace discipline. If Ms. Jones apologizes, she will
lose all her effectiveness.
{In the next paragraph, I step back into my shoes and respond to the objection??"this
is (b)}
This objection is based on a simplistic view of human psychology. If a higher-ranking official has
made a mistake, apologizing for the mistake does not make her lose credibility, it increases her
credibility! As long as such mistakes do not abound, she will be seen as a more credible and just
administrator for recognizing and facing up to her own mistakes. Instead, failing to apologize
multiplies her mistakes!
This example should give you a clear indication of what I am looking for in step 8.
Good luck!


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