Dear Cameron,

It all depends on student : advisor relationship. If you have not received any help from your advisor, still you can include his name if you have good relationship. If you are not getting any help and relationship is sour you also opt for not including the name of your advisor in your publications.However, I feel that you should maintain a good relationship with your advisor. 

Best wishes,

Subir.

I believe that if an adviser does not contribute to the work, then that person should not receive a co-authorship.  The issue, however, is what is considered a contribution.  Certainly if the advisor contributes to the study in terms of design, analysis, data collection, important input, writing or review/editing of the manuscript, then credit is earned and deserved.  However, there are also cases where the advisor may trigger the idea in the mind of the student by working with the student on the development of the idea or it may be something the advisor has been pondering and has "given" to the student to investigate....in these cases, then a careful review and determination should be made on an individual basis.

Personally, I have found that collaboration and the sharing of credit for ideas and studies ...even if the efforts and contributions are not as explicit or clear cut as one would like... is rarely a mistake.  After all, very little is completely original.  

Hello,

It may be a good idea to determine your institution's policy regarding this. 

Plus, APA has specified some guidelines in making those types of decisions that you may find helpful ...

http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/students/authorship-paper.pdf

https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/students/research-responsibilities.pdf

https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/students/authorship-determination.pdf

Of course, there is also academic literature on this...

Bridgewater, C. A., Bornstein, P. H., & Walkenbach, J. (1981). Ethical issues in the assignment of publication credit. American Psychologist, 36, 524-525.

Fine, M. A., & Kurdek (1993). Reflections on determining authorship credit and Authorship order on faculty-student collaborations. American Psychologist, 48, 1141-1147.

Goodyear, R. K., Crego, C.A., & Johnston, M. W. (1992). Ethical issues in the Supervision of student research: A study of critical incidents. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 23, 203-210.

Shawchuck, C. R., Fatis, M., & Breitenstein, J. L. (1986). A practical guide to the Assignment of authorship credit. The Behavior Therapist, 9, 216-217.

Spiegel, D., & Keith-Spiegel, P. (1970). Assignment of publication credits: Ethics and practices of psychologists. American Psychologist, 25, 738-747.

Standish, W. R. (1994). APA ethics and student authorship on master’s thesis. American Psychologist, 1096.

Thompson, B. (1994). The big picture(s) in deciding authorship order. American Psychologist, 1095-1096.

I agree with Dr. Damico regarding the originality of ideas.  If you consider the United States Office of Science and Technology policy's definition of plagiarism, “the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.” (Office of the President, 2000, section IV, I(3)), this is a very broad definition of plagiarism and would include getting a few ideas from your advisor (whether that means second author is a different issue, but still something to consider).

I also agree with Dr. Bandyopadhyay, it is important to foster good relations with your advisor, even if you are stepping out the door.  If you don't care about developing good relations, then consider the fact that you may need a letter of recommendation in the future, perhaps in the future you would like to collaborate with that person or with someone he/she knows well.

Good luck.

I don't see why an advisor should appear as one of the authors if he/she did not contribute to the paper.  However, if you are using the data collected by the advisor, I believe it's important to discuss the authorship list with the advisor.  After all, it's their data.

I appreciate the input folks. just my curiosity on the social networks' perspective, and you all satisfied it.

Depends on a lot of sensitive "things":

1. Theoretically if a person does not contribute to a paper then he / she shouldn't be included in the co-authors, only perhaps in the acknowledgment section. 

2. In reality, advisors, chairs, directors, department heads are usually included in papers , even if they have not contributed actively, as a way to "thank them" for what they have accomplished or what they have created (a team, a lab, a project etc). In Europe this is extremely common and there many researchers who publish 30-40 papers per year .. a fact we all know that it is impossible to do ..

3. In the US this rule is somehow "diluted" and not always applicable . Depends on the project (being politically correct) and the research group.