Are you confused about how to write a case study paper? Worry no more; this guide will walk you through the critical elements to consider for case study writing.
Case studies rank among the assignment types that college students often dread. These papers require critical thinking to analyze a problem and find suitable mitigation.
As such, case studies require intricate planning and analysis to prepare a paper deserving of quality grades. This article will cover the steps to writing a case study paper and some tips to help you develop your work.
What is a case study paper?
A case study paper analyzes a place, an occurrence, a person, or a phenomenon to reveal new solutions. A case study analyzes various aspects of an issue to seek the causes behind a behavior or phenomenon and suitable actions to mitigate a phenomenon.
Case study paper format
A case study paper comprises five main sections:
- The introduction comprises the research problem, why the research is significant, a statement on the relevance of the study methods used, and an overview of how the case study addresses the problem.
- The background – in this section you should establish the context of your research. Here, you should state the problem, arguments from previous work regarding the topic, and reasons behind the emergence of the issue. When addressing an interdisciplinary study, you should show how the aspects from various fields are connected and highlight the aspects of your study.
- Evaluation of the case – here you should highlight the main factors behind your essay problem and evaluate the current state of your problem. Within this section, you may present relevant data to show the extent of your identified problem.
- Solutions – after analyzing the problem, you should then present your solutions to mitigate the issue. Here, it would help if you showed the precision of the criteria you applied to determine the major factors behind your problem.
- Recommendations – here you should address the approach to applying your aforementioned solutions. You should define each solution to show its implementation method, the risk evaluations, and mitigation for various challenges you may experience during the implementation.
How to write a case study: steps to follow
Now that you are familiar with the structure of a case study, let’s look at the steps for writing your case study.
Set clear goals
Before starting with your paper, you should clearly define what you hope your readers understand from your case study. This helps you to brainstorm your main ideas and find relevant resources that help you analyze your topic.
Identify the problem
Next, analyze the phenomenon under study and check for issues that are directly linked to your problem. This widens your perspective and helps you understand the driving forces behind various phenomena, therefore helping you prepare more feasible solutions.
Organize your story
When evaluating your problem, you may opt to present the essay in a story format. This will help your audience relate to the issue and analyze the impact of various factors.
Find solutions
After discovering your problems, you should find resources that address the mitigation of each underlying issue behind a phenomenon. These solutions should evaluate the impact they may cause upon being adopted and how each approach impacts the overall scenario.
This section should analyze the impacts of solutions presented in previous case studies and their weaknesses. It is best to present special solutions that have not been presented in other scholarly work, as doing this may result in plagiarism.
Proofread your work
After writing your case study, proofread your work for grammatical and structural errors. Here, check the goals of your study and analyze how well they have been addressed in your work.
Final Take
The tips covered in this article should help you prepare a quality case study and comprehensively analyze the problem. We recommend checking some case study examples to grasp better a case study paper’s format and key regions.
