Strategies for Grad Students: Hail to the Jewel in the Center of the Journal Article!

Cheers to the jewel in the center of the lotus.  That's some Buddhism for you.  What is the jewel in the center of an article you are looking at during your research?

It is a single goddamn sentence.

When you look at a research article, the guy might have written 30 pages of analysis, but he probably has only one sentence, one message.  The message is a single sentence, and the rest of the article is just there to explain, elaborate, and substantiate the big idea.

So... when you are feeling overwhelmed by thousands of pages of journal articles as you work toward your degree or whatever you are doing, keep this in mind: Each article has only one big idea. Skim to it.  Get to the point.

That is the jewel in the center of the article.

One book/article = One Big Idea

Peer-reviewed, professional journal articles and books by scholars represent these ongoing conversations that take place among the people in any given professional field.  It's just a conversation. Don't let it get you overwhelmed.

Just glean that big idea from each article, and jump into the conversation by writing a meaningful article of your own.