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 Pilgrims 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 surprises her classmates. Mr. Ratburn complemented on the neatness and timing of the assignment. Buster checks Francine to make sure she is not a robot.

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 surprised and tells her that this is her assignment. Catherine tells her that she can't use someone else's work as her own, and explains that doing so is plagiarism. At dinner, Oliver Frensky, Francine's father, talks about stealing. This causes Francine to feel guilty about her assignment. 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 Francine's 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 plagiarism. She gives him a different report. In class Mr. Ratburn was handing back the Thanksgiving assignment. He comes to Francine and says to her how original her real report was. Francine looks at the assignment and sees that she a B plus. Arthur asks her what was so exciting for her that she earned a B plus. She replies because she turned in a paper that happens to be original, and the episode ends.

Goofs

 * Mr. Morris appears even though he left the show in the episode April 9th.
 * When Francine is watching TV she is wearing socks when she goes into her's and Catherine's room she is wearing shoes.
 * When Francine takes the work off the website, she copies, cuts, and pastes. Although you can't cut information from the internet. You can only copy it

Home Video
DVD:
 * Dancing Fools (DVD)
 * Arthur: Season 11