Francine's Pilfered Paper

Francine's Pilfered Paper is the first half of the 8th episode of Season 11. It first aired on September 5, 2007 with Buster Gets Real. This episode deals with plagiarism.

Summary
Mr. Ratburn assigns essays to his class and asks them to write a paper on a Thanksgiving topic. Not knowing what she's doing, Francine copies an essay from the Internet and turns it in as her work, not knowing of the consequences of plagiarism, which may get her suspended from school.

Plot
Mr. Ratburn asks the class to write a topic based on Thanksgiving. Francine feels that she will not be able to handle the topic (What the Pilgrams ate). Brain shows her that she could look up information on the internet and gave a warning that that not all the stuff she might find is accurate.

She goes home and finds a website that she feels suits her topic. She copies the information and created a title "Food For Thought". The next day she hands in the assignment early and suprises her classmates. Mr. Ratburn complemented on the neatness and timing of the assignment. Buster checks Francine to make sure she is not an alien.

The next day while everyone was working on their assignment, while Francine was watching the football game on TV. She gets called in by her sister Catherine. She tells her that she found a web site that might help her with her assignment. Francine was suprised and tells her that this is her assignment. Catherine tells her that she can't use someone elses work as her own, and explains that doing so is plagarism. At dinner, Oliver Frensky, Francine's father, talks about stealing. Causing Francine to feel guilty about her assignmnet. She asks to be excused from the dinner table. She rides her bike to Mr. Ratburn's house. Mr. Ratburn met Francine at the door. He assumes she has come over to get her assignment. He walks over to his desk and grabs a marker and marked Francines project with A minus. He says that their was some missing information. That night she has a dream that the writer of the web site visited her when she was an adult and says that Francine is a fake. On Monday morning she gets to class early and tells Mr. Ratburn about her accidental plagarism. She gives him a diiferent report. In class Mr. Ratburn was handing back the Thanksgiving assignment. He comes to Francine says to her how original. Francine looks at the assignment it was a B plus. Arthur what was so excited for a B plus. She replies with B plus and the screen fades to black