Question

Need references on where to start with algebra papers

Answer 1

What are you interested in? Although at this stage in your life probably textbooks are still more appropriate than papers!

Answer 2

Math papers cover very specific topics that need a good knowledge of the general matter the topic of the paper is about. In some cases extensive knowledge of other papers. At your level I think you are better off with advanced textbooks on the matters you mention if those are the fields you are interested in. The fields you mention are so vast that is difficult to get an idea about where you are headed. If Algebra is what you are interested in I suggest Algebraic Geometry, Number Theory and Noncommutative Algebra or even Category Theory for instance.

Answer 3

Depends on what you want to learn more about — for example, if error-correcting codes are interesting to you, and you like algebra, then Stichtenoth’s book “Algebraic Function Fields and Codes” could be a good next step :)

It’s all up to what your desires and interests are!

Answer 4

As other people here have suggested, papers are hard to read.  Old one which mark the dawn of a subject are often (imo, but certainly not always) not well written, and poorly type-set, and modern papers assumed a lot of background.

BUT!!!! What you might want to try is just typing key words for subjects you're interested into the search bar on ArXiv.  Sift through some abstracts, and find something that sounds really cool to you.  Then, you can make a personal goal of trying to understand the paper(s) that you find.  This will likely still involve you going back to learn more from textbooks and/or older references cited as you work your way through the paper, but I think it could be a great way where you get to start looking at papers like you want, and serve as motivation for the things you need to go look up.