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How to Write a Good Case Study: A Guide for Students

A case study is a paper that presents a deep analysis of a certain situation and gives the reader some possible ways of solving an issue. Students can find themselves faced with this type of paper in social sciences quite often, but also in fields as diverse as business and computer science. A case study is designed to help students to understand a problem, issue, or situation by exploring a specific example in detail. By examining these examples, students are able to draw broader conclusions. A case study is also an important way that students can demonstrate their ability to apply general principles, theories, or concepts to a specific situation.

There are two major divisions of case studies: descriptive and explanatory. In your academic experience, you can find yourself faced with numerous subsidiary types of writing such as illustrative, critical instance, cumulative, and narrative case studies. In general, the two types of case studies are divided by either being an examination of a specific instance in order to draw broader conclusions (descriptive), or an application of principles or theories to a specific instance (explanatory).

It goes without saying that it is fairly difficult to create a good case study writing guide that would suit each type of case study you might encounter in high school, college, or university. But today we are going to gather some effective general writing tips for a case study on any topic to help you perfect the art of the case study and solve your difficult case study problems.

Step One: Define the Main Problem

The very first step in creating a case study is identifying the case in question. In many cases, your instructor will provide you with the case you need to examine, but in others, you will identify a case yourself. To write a case study assignment, once you have selected the case that you intend to examine, you will need to break it down into a main idea and supporting ideas.

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Sometimes when students are assigned a topic, they are not able to identify a main problem statement for their subject in order to prepare their project report. Whatever you write about – a famous person, historical event, a business decision, political troubles – every topic has a main issue and secondary issues. In order to write a good case study, you need to practice and define the main problem without any difficulties. If you write about a well-known case, you can read some other case studies or articles associated with this topic in a newspaper or online. These techniques will help you to perfect problem definition. Once you have done so, you will be able to create an abstract and structure your paper effectively.

Step Two: Gathering Information

After you develop your topic and have defined a great problem you will work on, the next steps involve starting to gather information to write a case study paper professionally. Thanks to the ease of finding material online, there are a lot of excellent sources that you are free to use for writing a case study. Use books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and any other sources you are able to find. Your college or university library is a great resource for accessing scholarly sources without having to pay access fees. The more you find, the deeper the analysis you will be able to perform. For example, it would be really nice if writing about a case that happened about ten years ago you will be able to find a newspaper of that time with an article on your topic. While many newspapers provide access to a limited selection of articles from past years but will charge for full access to their complete archive, your university or college library likely subscribes to databases that can provide you with free access to newspaper and magazine archives. Providing a reader with a sample of the social attitudes of that time can make your paper much more interesting for the reader. It also will help you to contextualize your assignment and make it seem less dry.

Step Three: Cause and Effect

A good case study essay will typically use a cause-and-effect analysis. After all, the purpose of a case study is to examine what happened and why. By using a cause-and-effect analysis, you can begin to draw some conclusions about the case study, why events unfolded as they did, and what lessons we can learn from them. When you have enough information and understanding of an issue you can make the best possible cause and effect analysis. Brainstorm about what could cause this problem and why. Provide your reader with your personal point of view and the points of view of other authors and your sources. Give the reader a good background, starting with the introduction and ending with the conclusion, and support your analysis with reference to specific evidence and to relevant theories that help to explain what happened and why. Then show the effect of conflict and explain how it affects the future. By doing so, your cause and effect will provide structure for your paper and allow you to organize your material and your information in a way that will make it easier to develop your presentation without over-complicating your work.

Step Four: Additional Support

In order to make a case study paper more persuasive, students can use some additional supporting strategies. For example, you can find some statistical data and present it in a form of diagram or find some photos and include them in your case study. Or just find a similar situation in history and tell what types of solutions were found and what the effects of those solutions were. Present your own thoughts and points of view on the solutions for your selected issue. When writing a case study, do not forget that first of all, it is a research paper and not a piece of fiction, so use proper language style and avoid giving away too many personal feelings. Document all sources in a proper format such as APA, MLA, Chicago, or Turabian.

Step Five: Drawing Conclusions

To complete a case study, you need to tell the reader what it all means. You should end your case study with a discussion of the lessons that readers should take from the case study and how it answers the original question or concern posed in the assignment. By the time the audience has finished your paper, they should have a good understanding of why the case study is important and relevant. Try to finish with a compelling final thought to leave the reader with something to think about when the paper ends.

Write a case study with our writing guidelines for better academic results and see how easy paper writing can be! We hope our case study help is useful for you.