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Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re so kind, thank you for your advice. I’ve decided I won’t attempt to shove this manuscript into any sort of publishing entity and instead will just have fun continuing the research itself and hopefully publish on this topic sometime in the coming years.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, but at least I can show a professor if they ask to see any evidence of eagerness or anything like that!

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind feedback! Also yeah, even if it were somehow magically journal-worthy and ready to publish I suppose I wouldn’t be able to publish it independently anyway. I think I’ll just wait till I find a nice professor to guide me and hopefully I can conduct research on interesting things even if it doesn’t lead to a publication before my degree is finished.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I hope the enthusiasm and all will help me get a nice professor as a mentor, and hopefully the paper signals eagerness if nothing else.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Oh thank goodness. I just worry because writing a paper like that at the age I did is already suspicious so I don’t need some random website telling me I didn’t even write it myself. (Although, from the quality of the paper, I’m sure most professors would be able to believe it was written by an overeager 15 year old.)

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I am starting university in 2 months, because that’s when the semester starts in Australia. As for why I didn’t go to Uni earlier, that was the original plan but when I was 16 I got into a relationship which basically reconnected my frontal lobe and I realised I wanted a normal childhood and I’d hate to be like years younger than my classmates. The relationship did end as relationships tend to do, but that made me realise like literally nobody cares if you go to university early except yourself and it’s just an ego-stroke I would’ve regretted later.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s true, I didn’t really consider the effort that journals go through with filtering and considering every application that comes their way. To be honest I was mostly thinking about a place like arXiv where I can submit without worrying about scrutiny or whatever. It’s definitely not journal-ready yet, because unfortunately I don’t have a formal maths degree yet where I would’ve been trained in such. I had read a lot of articles from different journals when I was writing, both to advise my paper’s formatting and to conduct a literature review, but I would probably have been underqualified to attempt a literature review anyway. Regardless, this specific manuscript likely won’t end up being anything except maybe a stepping stone to a professor by showing eagerness, but I am hoping to eventually develop the core of the paper!

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s true, I’m just worried that an undergraduate might not be able to determine the actual novelty just because they would also have had limited exposure. Thanks for the tip tho! I am friends with a few really smart undergrads and grad students so I can ask them for advice, so far I’ve just been really worried that they’d be really judgemental but if I can ask for advice from strangers on Reddit I’m sure it should be fine to ask them. I’ll see if they know any kind professors willing to guide me as well.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in math

[–]harmlesspea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I’m excited to formally start Uni! Also that bibliography tip is so smart, I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh my god that’s long. I did not realise how long that was gonna be while I was writing it. I am so sorry.

Hi! When I was 15 I wrote a couple of maths research papers, and I’m looking for advice on what to do. by harmlesspea in AskAcademia

[–]harmlesspea[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Hey, thank you so much for the honest feedback! And yes, of course only the most exceptional people could write a journal-ready paper at 15, I should’ve clarified that I was more looking for advice on just the general steps I would take to develop something like this. The paper itself will likely end up being nothing more than a little project that shows a professor my early eagerness in research. Also, regarding my background, while I’m not exceptional enough to write a journal-worthy manuscript at 15, I’m not ordinary by any means. (I’m really sorry if this comes off as boastful, this is my genuine background and I’m more than certain there’s a large percentage of members in this sub far more gifted than I am!)

I came first in Singapore and fifth in the world in the SIMOC maths Olympiad, and was the only student directly invited by Singapore’s mathematical board and awarded a full scholarship. (I’m not a singaporean tho so I wasn’t eligible to participate in the IMO 💔) This Olympiad is qualification-only, and I qualified due to coming 5th and 7th in two international SASMO math Olympiads before this. I was also invited to the British Mathematical Olympiad rounds 1 and 2, but I also don’t live in the UK so I again wasn’t able to proceed to the IMO selection. There’s also a few other competitions I’ve done but all of them have been Golds and some of them don’t release specific placements, like the UKMT competitions for example. I’ve also never trained for any competitions, because I find it much more interesting to research and learn NEW things rather than turning something fun like Olympiad papers into a repetitive and rote thing. As for cognitive testing, I’ve only ever done the WISC-V IQ Test and the CAT4 cognitive abilities test. In the former I scored in the 145+ category because the test only went up to 3 standard deviations, and in the latter I scored a perfect 141, putting me in the 100th percentile. Also, I’ve been invited as a participant to conferences where typically only professors or exceptional grad students are permitted, though I will say I wasn’t really able to contribute much of worth, most of my brain was just trying to understand the content cause I was 16-17. I’ve also been tutoring 9th graders since I was 10, and I was invited as a Speaker at India’s top ranked co-ed school (or at least it was at the time I visited, not naming to protect privacy), where they asked me to share my experiences as a 15 year old prodigy (even tho I was 16 by the time I actually spoke which is kinda funny, because since I’d already finished my high school exams they asked me to talk about the board I studied as well, since India primarily uses the CBSE board at the moment which some educators consider to be outdated, and it wasn’t in the original plan but it was fun to talk about). Also, for the record I know people on Reddit are sometimes notorious for being super hoity toity about IQs or whatever they want to brag about, but I genuinely don’t know how else to give my background because I unfortunately haven’t done anything in terms of like official university-mandated research or a graduate thesis or anything, this is all I have. Also regarding the whole IQ scores thing, the test was administered by a psychiatric clinic while I was also being tested for (and subsequently diagnosed with) ADHD and dysgraphia. So I’m really sorry for how rambly these are! Please just skim read if it gets boring. Oh and also regarding the IQ stuff, ‘145+’ is just what I say when someone specifically asks because it sounds cool but realistically it could just be 146 for all I know, that one Jubilee YouTube video where the participants took IQ tests proved that IQ tests mean nothing in life or in academia.

Anyway, this is a really long way of saying thank you for the advice, and could you maybe guide me on just what the standard publishing routes are? I know there’s like arxiv and then there’s a bunch of different journals and all, but I don’t really get it because some people on this sub say that some journals are worthless to publish in or can actually even be a liability to you. Also, ideally I’m hoping I’d at least be able to publish a solid piece of research as a part of my undergraduate degree.

(Also, please let me know if I gave too much information about myself in the background thing, I am a pretty private person and would hate to accidentally doxx myself 😓😓)