Case Studies

1.         Library and Internet research. Find out what has been written before, and read the important articles about your case site. When you do this, you may find there is an existing problem that needs solving, or you may find that you have to come up with an interesting idea that might or might not work at your case site. For example, your case study might be on a national park where there have been so many visitors that the park’s ecosystem is in danger. Then the case problem would be to figure out how to solve this so the park is protected, but tourists can still come. Or, you might find that your selected site doesn’t have many tourists, and one reason is that there are no facilities. Then the case problem might be how to attract the right kind of businesses to come and build a restaurant or even a hotel – all without ruining the park.

Or your case study might be on historic sites that would interest tourists – if the tourists knew where the sites were or how to get to them. Or maybe your case study is about how to interest people in coming to your country so they can trace their family’s historic roots (origins).

Once you have decided on the situation or issue you would like to cover in your case study (and you might have several issues, not just one), then you need to go to the site and talk to experts.

2.         Interview people who know the place or the situation. Find

knowledgeable people to interview – they may be at the site itself or they work in a government office or company that deals with historic preservation. In addition to people who work at the site, talk to visitors.

When you are interviewing people, ask them questions that will help you understand their opinions, questions like the following:

• “What is your impression of the site (maybe it’s an old fort, or a burial site, or an excavation of historic interest)?”
• “How do you feel about the situation?”
• “What can you tell me about how the site (or the situation) developed?”
• “What do you think should be different, if anything?”

You also need to ask questions that will give you facts that might not be available from an article, questions like:

• “Would you tell me what happens here in a typical day?”
• “What kind of statistics do you keep? May I have a copy? How many businesses are involved here?”

When you ask a question that doesn’t let someone answer with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ you usually get more information. What you are trying to do is get the person to tell you whatever it is that he or she knows and thinks – even though you don’t always know just what that is going to be before you ask the question. Then you can add these facts to your case. Remember, your readers can’t go to your site, so you have to ‘bring it to them’.