How to complete your case study in just 4 easy steps

A case study is one of those research methodologies that has been commonly applied in social and life sciences. This research strategy helps to investigate a phenomenon within its real-life context. A case study is also sometimes described as a systematic in-depth investigation of a single individual, group, or event that helps to explore the causes of underlying principles. Case studies are often written for academic purposes or for the provision of corporate proof points.

Case studies can be further divided into four parts-

Illustrative case study: These are often termed as descriptive case studies that utilize one or two specimens of an event to describe some situation.

Exploratory case study: These are the condensed form of case studies that are performed before implementing some large-scale investigation. This helps the researcher identify questions and further select the types of measurement prior to the main investigation.

Cumulative case study: This type of case study helps in serving some aggregate information that has been collected from different sites. The main purpose of this study is to collect information from past studies for a much greater generalization.

Critical Instance case study: The purpose of this case study is to either examine a situation of unique or no interest or to call into some question or challenge a highly generalized or universal assertion.

Every case study has a different and unique approach of its own that makes it serve the purpose accordingly. But the basic method employed against every case study is found to be same. So, if your basic method isn’t strong, then your entire case study tends to fall apart. Follow these below-mentioned guidelines to draw up a proper case study-

1) Getting Started

Determine the case study type as per the needs of audience

Firstly, you need to choose the most appropriate audience for your research that goes well with the case study format. Further, examine the facts and draft them under the appropriate case study approach. Make sure that you analyze the situation well to help reveal its facts and information.

Determine the topic of your research

After choosing an appropriate group of audience for your research, make sure you choose the topic wisely. Opt for the angle that you are going to depict in your case study. The most common resources for selecting a topic are books and web. Go through the different web pages and sources; you can even look up to some magazines, journals, and newspapers for further help.

Look at the previously published work

When searching about your subject, refer to some old case studies that can be helpful for your project. Find out what was written previously under your subject, and read the relevant articles about your case. Make sure that you go through those case studies that are similar enough to your project. This can be helpful in providing you a proper structure and guide for your own case study project.

2) Prepare the Interview

Select participants for your case study

Contact some of your best sources and tell them to find a group of knowledgeable people for interview. Decide whether you are going to interview a person or a group. Collect as much information as possible from your participants that can be later helpful for the research.

Frame Questions

The interview being conducted for your research can either include a personal chat, group meeting, telephonic conversation, or email-chat. Try asking questions from people that can help you understand their viewpoints. Ask questions that can help you gather more information for your research.

Be polite with your participants and make sure that the questions maintain a logical framework. Don’t ask personal questions without informing your participants.

3) Obtain data

Collect and analyze data

After interviewing people for your research, the next step is to collect data from different sources. Obtaining data for a research project helps you to gather all the content needed for it. The sources for data collection include documents, newspapers, journals, magazines, books, observations, artifacts, and internet. You cannot include all of these sources for a single research project, so make sure what all is necessary for the project gets included further.

Formulate the problem

After collecting data, you need to frame sentences for the problem statement. Make sure that you organize the information well, based on their relevance, weight, and appropriateness.

4) Write down your piece

Develop and write down your case study as per the information collected

The important sections to be included in a case study are- Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Sample, and Conclusion.

The introduction part should be written in a clear and precise manner because it is the first thing that is included in a case study. It should provide a brief summary of your whole research project and impress the readers with its context. You can always start an introduction with some question or quote, which grabs the attention of readers.

The body part of your research includes all the other necessary information that could be useful to explain your case. Provide a little background information of your participants and explain what makes your problem an important issue. Provide an in-depth view of your issue that helps the audience understand it well. You can include different charts, pictures, and videos to support your theme of the project.

At the end of the project comes the conclusion part. You need to provide some solutions or future recommendations in the concluding paragraph. Feel free to leave the readers with questions and force them to think. This helps you to develop a more engaging content for the readers.

Add references

Provide a proper citation to your work and include all the sources from which the information was collected before. As people would like to know from which books or web pages, the information was chosen for this project. If you do not provide proper references to your project or miss some of them, then you will be obliged towards copying or plagiarizing someone’s already published content.

Edit and Proofread

Before submitting the final case study to your teacher, you need to make sure that you have done the editing and reviewed the content thoroughly so that there are no mistakes left in the project. Editing and Proofreading are the two most important aspects of any research project that needs to be done carefully before submitting it to the evaluator. They are considered to be the final stages of any research project.

If you are not good at editing or proofreading, you can take help from online assignment writing services that can assist in your project.