Readings that spark joy (or not)

Does Marie Kondo’s “Does this spark joy?” approach work for academic readings?

Some papers do spark joy and excitement. I can feel my brain expanding as I read them. And feel roots growing to link old ideas with new ones.

There are also the occasional papers I read that spark NO joy. After struggling, I will scan through, read the conclusion, and then stop reading. There are probably enough duplications happening across academia that skipping the badly written papers will not result in loss of "saturation."

This approach only works when I am reading literature to learn about content. It does NOT work for more structured literature reviews.

Hypothesis: readings that "spark joy" are more likely to be consumed, learned from, and cited.