Case studies are the papers, which we come across really often in academic practice. Professors like assigning this type of writing as it helps students to develop a range of skills, apart from writing itself, such as analyzing, finding solutions, supporting their opinion with evidence. Case studies are typically built upon a certain situation that offers a problem and a solution to it. Here are some useful hints for students on how a proper case study assignment has to be completed.
- How to analyze a case?
- Before you start writing, remember to examine your case well. Sometimes you will have to re-read it several times in order to make sure that you have noticed all the details and got the idea.
- Remember to take notes and make an outline of your case. Doing this brings realizing what the main existing problems are and what deserves the most part of your attention.
- Write down about 3 main issues and try to investigate their origin, reasons and the solutions that exist.
- Structuring the case study.
- Executive summary. This part is mainly about the points that you have highlighted during the preparation. It should indicate your purpose of writing, key ideas and problems, but without specifying the details. Here you should also introduce the theory, which you want to apply for proving your statements.
- “Findings” part. This section is about analyzing every problem that was investigated by you and supporting your ideas with proofs and theories. It is a good idea to separate the problems and dedicate a subsection for each.
- “Discussion” part. Here you will make a summary of the most significant problems uncovered in the case study analysis and reveal the most effective possible solutions, in your opinion.
- Concluding part. The concluding section is similar to any other paper’s conclusion as here you need to summarize the key points of your work.
- “Recommendations” section. This part is your personal recommendation of the solution, which suits the problem in the best way. You have to explain your point of view by finding proper reasons for making this choice.
- “Implementation” section. Implementation is a continuation of recommendations as you have to indicate how to bring your solution to life: who, when and where should take action.
- Work cited. Do not forget to indicate the authors and their works, which you used for developing your case study. The student must check if all the statements are cited properly in order to avoid plagiarism in your paper and feel safe.
- More tips on case study completion
- There are different types of case study assignments: long form and short form. The first type usually contains up to 10 pages and requires much time to be written properly. Short-form case studies are much shorter – one has to write only about 2 pages and mostly represent the problem without going too deep.
- Some case studies require adding appendices – the information that is original but cannot be fitted in the paper’s flow. These can be some graphs, figures, excerpts or diagrams that are necessary for understanding of the case.