Graph Theory - Degree when parallel edges are present

Question

I am confused while counting the degree of a vertex when parallel edge. For example - https://i.stack.imgur.com/umzfw.png "graph"

How do we calculate the degree of the vertex a? I know this so far - ae = 1 self loop of a = 2 but get confused whether to count the parallel edges as degree+1, degree+2 or degree+3

Answer 1

The degree of a vertex is simply the number of ways out of that vertex. $a$ has two from the loop, three from the three parallel edges to $b$, and one to $e$, making six total.