Tips for Crafting a Winning Case Study Analysis

How to Write a Perfect Case Study Analysis?

Case studies are used in a variety of disciplines, but primarily in business and management, for the simple reason that they allow students to deal with real-life problems akin to those they are going to encounter in their future careers. In other words, if you study one of these subjects, you are bound to encounter case studies at some point; and many other disciplines occasionally use them as well, which means that you’d better be prepared even if you have nothing to do with business and management.

In this article, we will cover some of the aspects of writing a case study analysis – the most common type of assignment associated with case studies. Read on, and you will never have another question concerning this kind of work.

Preparing for the Analysis

Do not move on to writing the analysis right away. Start with careful preparation to make sure you really understand the situation described in the case. Read the case study several times and carefully examine it, highlighting the most relevant information and taking notes about the facts that may come in handy when writing the analysis properly.

Then you have to determine the focus of your analysis. You cannot analyze the problem as a whole – it will take too much time and will not be of much use. Instead, you have to single out a few (2 to 5) key problems defining the situation and go with them. Try to understand why they exist, how they came to be, how they affect the effectiveness of the organization, who is responsible for their emergence, and who should deal with them. Determine whether anybody applied real effort to solve the problems.

Then you have to look for potential solutions to the situation. Do any solutions suggest themselves? If not, go through the course readings, your own personal experience, materials you read on your own, discussions in class, and any other relevant sources. Prepare strong evidence in favor of your solution and make sure it is realistic and yet untried.

If at this point you feel that writing an analysis on your own is beyond your abilities, you should consider getting help from a reliable case study writing service – it can make the following steps considerably easier.

Writing the Analysis

Once you have done your preliminary evaluation of the situation and gathered the necessary data, you can start writing up your case. While you may receive specific instructions as to the structure of your analysis from your professor, usually it consists of the following parts:

1. INTRODUCTION – Here you single out the most important problems and issues related to the key study and introduce your thesis statement. A thesis statement is a short (1 or 2 sentences) summary of the outcome of your analysis, containing only the most crucial information about it;
2. BACKGROUND – Here you move on to the case study itself. You provide the background information necessary to give context to your analysis. Describe the situation presented in the case study, introduce the most important issues discussed in it, provide background information necessary to understand your analysis and any other relevant data. All this is necessary to show that you’ve studied the case study and problems presented in it;
3. POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES – Here you mention the alternative solutions to the problem presented in the case study. You do not have to discuss all of them, especially if there many variants, but you have to present more than one potential solution to show that you have really analyzed the situation and evaluated the outcomes of many different approaches. For every alternative, offer the reasons why you think this solution is unviable;
4. YOUR SOLUTION – Here you propose your own solution and explain why you believe it to be the best possible option under the circumstances. Make sure it is as specific and realistic as possible. Provide reliable evidence to support your choice, be it information from the class, results of your own research, or personal experience;
5. SUGGESTIONS – Here you sum things up by adding specific recommendations and instructions for the successful accomplishment of the proposed solution. You may also offer suggestions for further actions to deal with problems that may arise later on.

Read more: 8 Foolproof Tips For Writing A Great Assignment

Adding Final Touches to Your Argument

When your analysis is done, do not be in a hurry to submit it. The best solution would be to set it aside for a few days and then get back to it to see if you missed something or made any mistakes. Reread your entire analysis a few times and ask yourself whether there are any gaps or inconsistencies in your reasoning. Do individual parts of your argument properly connect to each other and logically follow each other? Is your thesis statement concise and unambiguous? Is it relevant for the rest of the argument? Did you provide enough evidence in favor of your solution and against alternative approaches? Is there anything to add that may be crucial for proving your point? Is anything you have written superficial and can it safely be removed?

After you are satisfied with the analysis per se, do not forget to proofread and edit it to make sure you did not make any mistakes that will devalue your argument. The most efficient way to do so is to create a list of all your most typical mistakes and go through the entire analysis a few times, each time paying special attention to one particular type of errors. Reading your text aloud can also help you uncover any awkward wording or sentence structures.

As you can see, there is nothing particularly difficult about writing a case study analysis – you simply have to follow a pre-determined plan. Of course, the approach we described in this article is not universal – if your professor gives you guidelines that differ from what we provided here, they should take preference. However, the main principles remain the same – follow our general tips, and you will not need any other source of information on the subject.