need help in paraphrasing

[homad]

Hello

Can you help in paraphrasing this text, because I have no idea how to paraphrase. Also, how can we avoid plagiarism?

This the text:

The sub-prime defaults were the jolt that began the financial collapse, but they weren't the cause. They were only the trigger. The housing depression is a rolling deflation, triggered by the fall off of markets that were only supposed to expand and increase in value; it is exacerbated by defaults next door. That's why the financial collapse is so hard to contain. When a couple of houses default in a neighborhood that brings down the value of all the surrounding homes, and people may default when they realize that their mortgage balance is for more than the house is worth, and they struggle to pay their premiums every month. Declining values escalate, affecting other neighborhoods, and so on.

Thank you!!

 

[homad]

uppppppppppppppp

 

[Barb_D]

Hi homad, and welcome to Using English.
To paraphrase something, you have to restate the idea in your own words.

This is a complicated description of the financial collapse, and it is hard to paraphrase something unless you have a good understanding of the topic.

Do you thoroughly understand the topic?

 

[homad]

actually, I don't understand it very well. But I need to paraphrase it. aren't there any techniques for that?

 

[homad]

any help?

 

[Barb_D]

I really don't think there's a trick to this.

In my job, I have to learn about some technical things. Sometimes, it's enough for me to understand it just a bit, to satisfy my own curiosity and know what I need to know as an employee. But usually, I have to understand it well enough to explain it in plain, non-technical words to others. I have to keep asking or researching on my own to understand it.

You need to be able to explain what you've read in your own words, which does, I'm afraid, require that you really understand it. If you just try to restate something you've read without understanding it, you won't know if you've said it correctly.

Read though that passage again. Can you try to say what the main point of that passage is?