Timeline
The competition has three phases:
- Phase 1: Join the competition as a participant or judge From to
Participants all work on their projects and the Discord server allows creators to share partial progress, find collaborators and ask for help.
- Phase 2: Vote for the best contributions From to
Peer review! You'll be successively shown entries to review and optionally provide feedback. This is the heart of the event and in past years this phase has been what jump-started meaningful exposure for many entries.
- Phase 3: Results and feedback current
The top entries are revealed with the complete ranking of entries.
How does it work?
When is the registration deadline?
The competition is closed. Stay tuned for the next edition!
I'm not a creator, can I participate?
Sure, you can participate in the peer review phase by registering as a judge.
You'll discover new Science content creators, will be able vote for the best ones and leave comments and advices for creators to learn from.
Is there a topic constraint?
It has to be about math or something related.
Here we mean « math » very broadly, and more applied topics like physics or computer science are abundantly welcome. It just has to be the case that a viewer/reader might come away knowing something mathematical they didn't before.
The topic could be at any level, whether that's basic math for young children or higher-level math. If you're assuming a certain background level for the target audience, kindly mention it below.
What software should I use?
You can use any software you're familiar with, there's no constraint. You can even use no visualization software at all!
What matters most is to find your own style, as this will make you stand out during the vote. And you'll have more fun making things your way.
So feel no pressure to copy anyone's style, we'll enjoy your entry even more if it's original, so go have fun!
How many entries can I submit?
One entry per person / group
We hope you make more, but we only have the capacity to judge participants based on a single entry.
Can I use an old entry?
It has to be something new you make this summer
The spirit of this is to encourage people who've never put stuff online before. If you want to work on something you sort of started once before, that's probably fine, but it can't be something you already published before this contest. Optimally, you'd use this as a chance to try something new you otherwise might not have.
Does it have to be in English?
It has to be available in English: subtitles or translation are needed.
If you want to put out an explainer in another language, wonderful! Please do! But the judges here will be English speakers, so to be considered for the contest the lesson has to be accessible to them.
Can I use copyrighted material?
By registering as a creator you agree to the following copyright notice:
I have permission to use all material contained in my submission for the Summer of Math Exposition.
How will winners be selected?
This year's competition is run by the community, and as such, there will not be manual peer review nor prize money for winners as in previous editions.
However the voting process will sift through the entries and give greater visibility to the better ones. The winning entries of this edition will be determined by the vote and will be revealed at the end of the competition.
Here's what we're looking for:
- Motivation: It should be clear by the end of the introduction why one should care.
- Clarity: Jargon should be explained, the goals of the lesson should be understandable with minimal background, and the submission should generally display empathy for people unfamiliar with the topic.
- Novelty: It doesn't necessarily have to be an original idea or original topic, but it should offer someone an experience they might otherwise not have by searching around online. Some of the greatest value comes from covering common topics in better ways. Other times there's value in surfacing otherwise obscure ideas which more people should know about.
- Memorability: Something should make the piece easy to remember even several months later. Maybe it's the beauty of the presentation, the enthusiasm of the presenter, or the mind-blowingness of an aha moment.