Is it Appropriate to Include Personal Correspondence in the Appendix of a Thesis? While conducting research for my dissertation, my collaborator and I discovered a mathematical error in published work and this error was confirmed by the author through personal correspondence. On the surface, it appears as a minor error, however it effects certain mathematical statements. The author of the work unfortunately has not published the correction in the errata for the work. It has been over a year now since our last correspondence.
The area of research I'm conducting is not widely studied so there isn't a large community of academics who are familiar with subject matter so this is unlikely to be something that will be checked by the wider community.
In the manuscript, I have written that we discovered an error and corrected it and that the correction was also confirmed by the author, and the only proof I have is email correspondence from the author. After I graduate, my email account will be shut down after a year. Therefore, would it be alright to include the correspondence I have as an appendix in the thesis in order to verify the statement I made about discovering the error and having our correction verified? The language in the email is formal and professional.
You can only publish email correspondence in your thesis if all people involved in the email communication agree.  Anything else is highly unprofessional and also unethical.
On the other hand, if you have clearly demonstrated that the manuscript had an error, there is no need to add those email.  You could write that this has been confirmed by the author and cite a &quot;private communication&quot;.
Regarding the emails, there should be no problem to save the emails even if your account is deleted.