Mercyhurst Student Paige Thomas is New Author

2011 Apr 26

Paige Thomas of Hillard, OH, is among 25 Mercyhurst College students to become new authors, the result of a project conceived by intelligence studies instructor Dan Mulligan as part of his "Introduction to Competitive Intelligence" course.

Thomas, a junior Intel Studies major at Mercyhurst, helped write a paperback book edited by Mulligan called "Insights and Analysis in 10 Minutes (or Less)" in which the students summarized and analyzed 26 different books on leadership, business and motivation.

Mulligan could have assigned each student to read a business book, write a paper summarizing it and deliver a report to the class, the impact of which would have been short-lived. Instead, he made the assignment and let it be known that the results would be published. That, he hoped, would motivate students to ratchet up the quality of their work. Further, the publication would be available for them to keep, not only as a reference but as something tangible they could produce at a job interview.

Mulligan said many companies generate business book summaries – similar to Cliffs Notes™ – that review the book's main points. His assignment was for students not only to read and summarize a book of their choice, but to go a step further by researching and analyzing the book's contents and its author.

"In other words, tell me about the book, but also tell me about the credibility of what's being said in the book," Mulligan explained.

Intelligence studies students are educated in taking vast amounts of information and condensing it into the most important parts. "Basically, we had them use our short-form analytic report format to quickly and concisely relate the highlights of the book and then produce some back-up research and analysis," Mulligan said.

The new book, completed at the close of winter term 2011, represents Vol. 2 in a series. The first was done a year ago and students in Mulligan's current "Intro to Competitive Intelligence" course are working on Vol. 3.

"The books are essentially 'vanity press' but my goal is to go back and compile the best of all three volumes and possibly make them available for free through our department's website," Mulligan said.

(The Mercyhurst intelligence studies website is intel.mercyhurst.edu.)