Case Studies

3.28. Writing the Case Study

Writing the case study:

1. Describe the problem or case question you want the reader to solve.

In a detective story, the crime happens right at the beginning and the detective has to put together the information to solve it for the rest of the story. In a case, you can start by raising a question. You can, for example, quote someone you interviewed. For example, suppose you interviewed a tourist official and she told you she thought more people should be interested in visiting, and she can’t understand why they don’t come. Then you could write something like this:

The historic town of XX is located in the mountains of country X. The town tourism supervisor, Mrs. Joan Smith, said that she thought “many more people should visit here, but they just don’t come. I don’t know why – maybe we don’t have the right kinds of places for them to eat or sleep and it’s too far to travel in one day from the nearest big city.” The case writers wondered what would have to happen in order to make the town more attractive to tourists.

Because you are the authors, you and your fellow students can write questions like this and set the stage for the rest of your case story. What your introduction does is give clues to the reader about what they should be thinking about. Once you have told the reader what one person associated with the tourist area thinks the problem is – how to make the place more attractive – you can give them the information they need to come to their own conclusions.