"It's the [something], stupid" (via Vegreville)

Many people remember the "It's the Economy, Stupid" phrase from the Clinton campaign. It was a good way of focusing the campaign on what they though was the one key issue. The idea was that they had one message that they wanted to keep pounding home, and the sentence was a good reminder.

Unfortunately, it's too easy to forget this idea when we're preparing a paper, a lecture, or a talk. Every time we're preparing for one of those, we should have a "It's the [something],stupid" sentence in mind.

Vegreville has a post that's hits this topic dead on. He also a great line to put in a referee's report:

"This paper does not kick any ass. Sorry."

To steal a phrase, "heh"