Short article: one way to get a degree (5)
I believe the answer is:
third
'a degree' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'short article one way' is the wordplay.
'short' means to remove the last letter.
'article' becomes 'the' (the 'definite article' part of speech).
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
'way' becomes 'rd'.
'the' with its last letter taken off is 'th'.
'th'+'i'+'rd'='THIRD'
'to get' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for third that I've seen before include "Winning bronze medal" , "Eroica, Beethoven's - symphony" , "Tertiary" , "Last place on the podium?" , "Ordinal number" .)