Nazarbayev University LibGuides: Avoiding Plagiarism: Home

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is a type of cheating that involves using another person's ideas, words, design, art, music, etc., as one's own in whole or in part without acknowledging the author or obtaining his or her permission. Plagiarism is not just restricted to written text but is applicable to other works such as ideas, design, art, and music.

Types of Plagiarism

Plagiarism can occur in many ways:

Direct plagiarism
Direct "patchwork" plagiarism
Insufficient citation of partial quotations
Paraphrasing (or summarizing) without citing sources
Insufficient citation of paraphrase (or summary)
Plagiarism of graphs, charts, figures, or images
Misinterpretation of material as "common knowledge"

At Nazarbayev University, the Students Code of Conduct defines plagiarism as "intentionally or carelessly presenting the work of another as one’s own. It includes submitting an assignment purporting to be the student’s original work which has wholly or in part been created by another person. It also includes the presentation of the work, ideas, representations, or words of another person without customary and proper acknowledgement of sources."

Plagiarism occurs when a person:

directly copies one or more sentences of another person’s written work without proper citation, including cutting and pasting material obtained from the Internet or other electronic sources;
changes words but copies the sentence structure of a source without giving credit to the original source, or closely paraphrases one or more paragraphs without acknowledgement of the source of the ideas, or uses graphs, figures, drawings, charts or other visual/audio materials without acknowledging the source or the permission of the author;
submits false or altered information in any academic exercise, including making up data for an experiment, altering data, citing nonexistent articles, contriving sources, etc.;
turns in all or part of assignment done by another student and claims it as their own;
uses a paper writing service, has another student write a paper, or uses a foreign language translation and submits it as their own original work;
in computer programming class, uses computer code written by another student.
Source: NU Student Code of Conduct

Tips for avoiding plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism requires good writing skills. Here you will find some writing tips below to help you get started on the right track.

Learn the principles of good writing so you have the necessary skills to express your ideas in your own words. Poor writing skills often result in unintentional plagiarism.
Learn how to paraphrase a source with your own words. After you have finished reading something, set it aside, write it in your own words, compare it with what you read earlier in the source document, and refine your writing. Make sure to cite the source document.
Learn how to cite sources properly. Choose a citation style (such as APA, MLA, or other as required) suitable for your discipline and familiarise yourself with it fully. You may also find examples of citation styles in journals specific to your discipline.
Learn what plagiarism is and what it is not. Learn how to detect it. After paraphrasing a source, identify words or phrases in what you have written that appear to be similar to those in the source. You can highlight such words or phrases in your own writing and decide if they should be within quotes or should be expressed differently with your own words.
Don't assume what you know is "common knowledge" for everyone—it may not be. You may need to cite some things you think are "common knowledge."
Don't misinterpret or manipulate what was intended in a source to suit your needs. This applies not only to text but also to charts, graphs, images, music, and video.
When using citations gleaned from secondary sources, make sure those citations actually exist and find out what was really conveyed in those cited sources so that you are not reproducing someone else's misinterpretation.
Obtain permission from authors when using large portions of their text and give them due credit in your writing.
Make use of the help available from the Library, the Writing Center at the university, online resources, and, of course, your course instructor.
When in doubt, put the text within quotes and include citations.

Need more help?

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Email: library@nu.edu.kz

Academic honesty

When you plagiarize, you present someone else’s work as your own, whether it's intentional or not. This includes using quotes, paraphrasing, summarizing, or copying material without giving credit to the original sources. If you plagiarize, you are not following proper referencing guidelines and are engaging in academic dishonesty.