I am planning to submit some results from my second postdoc research to a journal for publication but now I am facing a dilemma on whether I should include the name of my "so-called" supervisor on manuscript or not... Basically some of the work was done in the lab under her name (that she inherited from a retired colleague without spending any money on the lab facilities). She has left my university for another position in different country and she has really no input for any of my results (in the last 3 years) and is just a "supervisor" on title (I have not seen her over 2 years!)

I personally feel that it is unethical to include her as an author... The problem is that I will need her as a reference for my future job search and she is very "publication-oriented" for her career and she knows that I am writing a paper. I can send the paper to her for her feedback but then again she has no input on results and usually does not provide any useful feedback and I do not think giving feedback is "co-authoring".... and let's be frank, I am sick of having my work done with her name attached without really receiving any input from her... Can I just leave her under acknowledgement and thank her for letting me using "her lab" instead of including her as the co-author and still hope that she would give me a good reference for my future work search?

You need to ask: is 'getting one over', so to speak, your supervisor worth not receiving a reference and joining the dole queue once you finish your post doc? Please be practical. Ask her if she wants crediting?

lol...of course she wants "crediting"... who does not specially when someone else is doing the work and one just takes credit for it. :)... the question is does she deserve crediting?

You should put her on there. She's still your supervisor. She will be annoyed if you don't. I have had to include my 3rd and 4th supervisors on my paper and one has had no input whatsoever. Do they deserve it? No, but it's expected some supervisors have limited input and are named as authors.

No of course she doesn't deserve it, but if she could have any influence on your future career, I think it's better to keep her happy? Good luck :)

That is specifically NOT the question! The question *really* is, do you want to make unnecessary opponents at this stage? And in any case, the fact that she is fourth author wil surely speak for itself.

I think including her works both ways - she gets her name on another publication, and you get her feedback and her more established name on your paper, as well as keeping her on side for a good reference. I can't see any good reason not to include her.

The thing is that I have some publications with her even though she did not provide any input into these papers. Now it seems that in her group, it is expected that you include all of the people work in the lab as co-author and frankly speaking it is unethical and this is a good reason to not include her... is not it?

I look at it like this:

Adding your supervisor on will add credibility to your work. Ignore whether she contributed enough or not.

I was taught two ways to deal with this for people who have limited input in the output.

1) put them in the author list, but not the last name. The first and last author are the important names. So put them in the middle.

2) Put their name in the acknowledgment section instead.

Thanks holyshield... a very good idea! I never thought of it this way! :)

I would not risk it. Of course it is unfair, we all know that. Some department heads are on literally every publication of the department and often for absolutely no reason besides being the boss but in the end you rely on their recommendation letters. As long as you are the first author....

I honestly don't understand the issue - put her as an author if that's what she wants. When you are a big academic (attracting your own funding), you can have a bunch of underserved publications too?

See this post too...