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I am an undergraduate working on a research project that was originally proposed by my advisor. I drafted a very rough preliminary version of the paper (containing a trivial result) and uploaded it to arXiv, not realizing that even an unfinished draft is treated as a public claim of ownership. Because the upload listed only my name, it appeared as if I were claiming the result independently of my collaborators.

I withdrew it immediately after my advisor pointed it out, and I apologized. He explained that anything made public should be cleared with all collaborators first, since public posting implicitly signals priority/credit rather than “work in progress.”

My questions are about the future professional relationship, not about arXiv policy:

  • How big of a deal is this in practice?

  • After a mistake like this, do advisor–student relationships typically fully recover, or does it usually create a lasting trust gap?

  • What is the best way to rebuild confidence so I am not perceived as trying to claim sole credit?

  • Should I be worried about this affecting a future recommendation letter, or is this the kind of early-career mistake people typically move past once acknowledged and corrected?

I’m trying to understand whether this kind of incident is viewed as a temporary misunderstanding that can be repaired, or whether it tends to have long-term consequences in the mentorship relationship.

I honestly haven’t read many papers on arXiv — I only recently learned about it from a friend and thought it was just a general place to upload research drafts. The project itself is simply another proof of a classical theorem in Calculus and comes from a directed reading/research program I’m doing with a friend and a professor, so I didn’t expect it to raise any issues of competition since it is really simple.

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    We can't answer questions like #2 and #3, there are no statistics on it, and it's too dependent on personalities and fields, etc. Commented Oct 28 at 20:40
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    Presumably you know this by now, but in addition to the "priority / credit" issue: (1) arXiv shouldn't be used for unfinished work at all. It's only for "refereeable" manuscripts that are in a form you would be willing to submit for peer reviewed publication. (2) Most people don't publicly share unfinished work at all, neither on arXiv or anywhere else, except possibly "work in progress" conference talks. (3) Neither finished nor unfinished work may be shared publicly in any forum without the consent of all coauthors. Commented Oct 28 at 21:08
  • Regarding arXiv, on a long run you might update the withdrawn post with the final paper (with all authors). Commented Oct 28 at 21:15
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    ‘How big of a deal is this in practice?’ etc. What does your advisor advise? I reckon he or she is mature enough, or at least experienced enough, to help you understand your faux pas. Commented Oct 29 at 3:25
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    What is unclear from your post: Did you give away important ideas on your project with this post, so that others could start working on it, thinking "hey, we can do this much better that this guy"? Commented Oct 29 at 7:48

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Generally speaking, I think it's fine. You are an undergraduate, and you fixed the error right away. (I don't use ArXiV, but Nate Eldredge stated that arXiv is for complete submissions, so the fact that you uploaded something incomplete makes it clearer this is a newbie error.)

Also, as Andreas Blass notes in a comment, this was an omission, which would make it very hard for anyone to ever learn that the PI was left off a preprint. Very different from putting his name on some cranky work or something.

My point is, don't keep doing this, and a reasonable advisor will understand that it was an honest mistake. I doubt it will significantly affect your relationship, or future career.

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    Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Academia Meta, or in Academia Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. Commented Oct 29 at 16:24
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I agree with the accepted answer, but add that aside from any faux pas concerning authorship and ownership, it is reasonable that the PI of a lab be informed before-the-fact for just about every piece of information that comes out of the lab.

That's a pretty reasonable courtesy to extend. The PI has tremendous interest in how the lab looks to the world, and should probably be brought into most decisions that could impact that.

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    This is definitely the takeaway - publishing anything is a "discuss with the PI" situation, and the PI will be able to help you make sure it is right. This is the kind of stuff it's fine to check in with postdocs if the lab has them too - work with them to make sure it's as close to what the PI wants, and then get the PI's review. Commented 2 days ago
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I think this really depends on why you did post this unfinished note on the arxiv (on which you don't elaborate at all in your post), and how you explained this to your supervisor.

After all, in addition to the authorship question (which you indeed might simply not have known), there is the point that the arxiv is not a place for unfinished notes. Since you knew about the arxiv, I assume you had read a number of papers from there, and you must have realized that your unfinished draft was not on the level of the papers you found on the arxiv. Thus, the question I would ask to you as a supervisor would be why you posted said unfinished draft on the arxiv in the first place (independent of authorship issues).

For me as a supervisor, the explanation you would give for your actions - not only the posting without checking with me and the other team members, but also for the posting as such - would be essential in determining what lessons I would take from that for the future.

(The reason why I primarily discuss the posting as such is because there, I do have a hard time understanding what made you do so. I think it would be helpful if you could add this to your posting - either why you did it, or what you gave to your supervisor as an explanation.)

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I am going to assume the subject area here is mathematics. This is a very field-dependent question, as other users have mentioned. For instance, as @scott-seidman says, in the lab sciences the head of the lab has a special role which would be relevant here.

It sounds to me like you posted, to the arXiv, some material you might put on a personal blog or in a set of lecture notes circulated among students. No-one would feel entitled to be credited as a collaborator on your blogpost about a proof of a classical theorem in calculus. (Although, as you now know, that should go on your personal website.)

It sounds to me like your advisor seized an opportunity to teach you, before you made any real mistakes:

  1. the role the ArXiv plays in mathematics, as a place that finished texts are made available, rather than a space for unfinished work and personal notes, and
  2. the high value mathematicians place on naming any collaborators near the start of any public document or talk about novel joint work.

I doubt this is a breach of trust, just a teachable moment. To be a bit harsher one could say you lacked professionalism, as @user151413 says. Personally I don't really expect undergraduates to be very professional anyway, but standards vary.

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