formulate and include a thesis statement summarizing the outcome of your analysis

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Guidelines for Writing a Case Study Analysis

A case study analysis requires an investigation to a problem. Then, examine the alternative solutions. Next, propose the most effective solution using supporting evidence.

Preparing the Case

Before you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case study:

• Read and examine the case thoroughly Take notes, highlight relevant facts, and underline key problems.
• Focus your analysis Identify key issues. Who or what are responsible?
• Detect solutions Review: course readings, discussions, outside research, and your experience.
• Select solution[s] Consider all supporting evidence, pros, and cons: is this solution genuine?

Drafting the Case

A draft of your analysis should include these sections:

• Introduction Identify the key problems and issues in the case study. • Formulate and include a thesis statement, summarizing the outcome of your analysis in 1–2 sentences.
• Background Set the scene: background information, relevant facts, and the most important issues. Demonstrate that you have researched the problems in this case study.
• Choices Explain why alternatives were rejected or not possible at this time.
• Solution[s] Provide one specific and realistic solution. Explain why this solution was chosen. Support this solution with solid evidence.
• Recommendations Determine and discuss specific strategies for accomplishing the proposed solution. What should be done and who should do it?

Finalizing the Case

Read through your work to check for any gaps or inconsistencies in content. I suggest reading it out loud. It can bring the inconsistencies or gaps to light much faster than reading it in silence to yourself.

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Answered By: Coleen Neary Last Updated: Jun 02, 2023     Views: 265043

A case study analysis requires you to investigate a business problem, examine the alternative solutions, and propose the most effective solution using supporting evidenc e.

Before you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case study:

• Take notes, highlight relevant facts, and underline key problems.
• Identify two to five key problems
• Why do they exist?
• How do they impact the organization?
• Who is responsible for them?
• Review course readings, discussions, outside research, and your experience.
• Consider strong supporting evidence, pros, and cons: is this solution realistic?

Once you have gathered the necessary information, a draft of your analysis should include these sections:

• Identify the key problems and issues in the case study.
• Formulate and include a thesis statement, summarizing the outcome of your analysis in 1–2 sentences.
• Set the scene: background information, relevant facts, and the most important issues.
• Demonstrate that you have researched the problems in this case study.
• Outline possible alternatives (not necessarily all of them)
• Explain why alternatives were rejected
• Constraints/reasons
• Why are alternatives not possible at this time?
• Provide one specific and realistic solution
• Explain why this solution was chosen
• Support this solution with solid evidence
• Concepts from class (text readings, discussions, lectures)
• Outside research
• Personal experience (anecdotes)
• Determine and discuss specific strategies for accomplishing the proposed solution.
• If applicable, recommend further action to resolve some of the issues
• What should be done and who should do it?

After you have composed the first draft of your case study analysis, read through it to check for any gaps or inconsistencies in content or structure: Is your thesis statement clear and direct? Have you provided solid evidence? Is any component from the analysis missing?

Source :  University of Arizona Writing Center. (n.d.). Writing a case study analysis .  URL: https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing-case-study-analysis

• For additional help with the final draft on revisions and editing, please refer to Writing@APUS, The Final Product for tips on proofreading,  
• Looking for other business writing resources?  See:  How to Find Business Communication & Writing Resources

Questions?  Contact the library .

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• How to analyse a case study

Case study analysis

A case study analysis requires you to investigate an organisational challenge, provide solutions based on a tried theoretical framework or model and then propose the most effective solution/s using evidence-based research.

Preparing the Case

Before you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case study:

• Take notes, highlight relevant facts, and underline key problems.
• Identify two to five key problems
• Why do they exist?
• How do they impact the organization?
• Who is responsible for them?
• Review course readings, discussions, outside research, and your experience.
• Consider strong supporting evidence, pros, and cons: is this solution realistic?

Drafting the Case

Once you have gathered the necessary information, a draft of your analysis should include these sections:

• Identify the key problems and issues in the case study.
• Formulate and include a thesis statement, summarizing the outcome of your analysis in 1–2 sentences.
• Set the scene: background information, relevant facts, and the most important issues.
• Demonstrate that you have researched the problems in this case study.
• Outline possible alternatives (not necessarily all of them)
• Explain why alternatives were rejected
• Constraints/reasons
• Why are alternatives not possible at this time?
• Provide one specific and realistic solution
• Explain why this solution was chosen
• Support this solution with solid evidence
• Concepts from class (text readings, discussions, lectures)
• Outside research
• Personal experience (anecdotes)
• Determine and discuss specific strategies for accomplishing the proposed solution.
• If applicable, recommend further action to resolve some of the issues
• What should be done and who should do it?

Finalising the Case

After you have composed the first draft of your case study analysis, read through it to check for any gaps or inconsistencies in content or structure: Is your thesis statement clear and direct? Have you provided solid evidence? Is any component from the analysis missing?

• Cengage learning - Analyzing a case study
• Framework for Case Analysis  - Free online guide on case analysis from the College of Management at UMass Boston.
• Guide to case analysis  - from the publisher McGraw Hill. Includes sections on objectives of case analysis, preparing a case for class discussion and preparing a written case analysis.
• How to analyse a case study  - from the publisher Prentice Hall: "This Hands-on Guide presents a structured framework to help you analyze case studies."

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How to Write a Case Study

Preparing the case, drafting the case.

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Before you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case study:

• Take notes, highlight relevant facts, underline key problems.
• Identify two to five key problems
• Why do they exist?
• How do they impact the organization?
• Who is responsible for them?
• Review course readings, discussions, outside research, your experience.
• Consider strong supporting evidence, pros, and cons: is this solution realistic?

note: from Ashford University Writing Center

Once you have gathered the necessary information, a draft of your analysis should include these sections:

• Identify the key problems and issues in the case study.
• Formulate and include a thesis statement, summarizing the outcome of your analysis in 1–2 sentences.
• Set the scene: background information, relevant facts, and the most important issues.
• Demonstrate that you have researched the problems in this case study.
• Explain why alternatives were rejected
• Constraints/reasons
• Why are alternatives not possible at this time?
• Provide one specific and realistic solution
• Explain why this solution was chosen
• Support this solution with solid evidence
• Concepts from class (text readings, discussions, lectures)
• Outside research
• Personal experience (anecdotes)
• Determine and discuss specific strategies for accomplishing the proposed solution.
• If applicable, recommend further action to resolve some of the issues
• What should be done and who should do it?
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GUIDELINES FOR WRITING A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

A case study analysis requires you to investigate a business problem, examine the alternative solutions, and propose the most effective solution using supporting evidence. To see an annotated sample of a Case Study Analysis, click here. Preparing the Case Before you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case study:

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5.7: Analytical Thesis Statements

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Learning Objective

• Describe strategies for writing analytical thesis statements
• Identify analytical thesis statements

In order to write an analysis, you want to first have a solid understanding of the thing you are analyzing. Remember, this means:

• Breaking down information or artifacts into component parts
• Uncovering relationships among those parts
• Determining motives, causes, and underlying assumptions
• Making inferences and finding evidence to support generalizations

You may be asked to analyze a book, an essay, a poem, a movie, or even a song. For example, let’s suppose you want to analyze the lyrics to a popular song. Pretend that a rapper called Escalade has the biggest hit of the summer with a song titled “Missing You.” You listen to the song and determine that it is about the pain people feel when a loved one dies. You have already done analysis at a surface level and you want to begin writing your analysis. You start with the following thesis statement:

“Escalade’s hit song “Missing You” is about being sad after a loved one dies.”

There isn’t much depth or complexity to such a claim because the thesis doesn’t give much information. In order to write a better thesis statement, we need to dig deeper into the song. What is the importance of the lyrics? What are they really about? Why is the song about being sad? Why did he present it this way? Why is it a powerful song? Ask questions to lead you to further investigation. Doing so will help you better understand the work, but also help you develop a better thesis statement and stronger analytical essay.

Formulating an Analytical Thesis Statement

When formulating an analytical thesis statement in college, there are three words/phrases to remember:

• What? What is the claim?
• How? How is this claim supported?
• So what? In other words, “What does this mean, what are the implications, or why is this important?”

Telling readers what the lyrics are might be a useful way to let them see what you are analyzing and/or to isolate specific parts where you are focusing your analysis. However, you need to move far beyond “what.” Instructors at the college level want to see your ability to break down material and demonstrate deep thinking. The claim in the thesis statement above said that Escalade’s song was about being sad, but what evidence do we have for that, and why does that matter?

Effective analytical thesis statements require digging deeper and perhaps examining the larger context. Let’s say you do some research and learn that the rapper’s mother died not long ago, and when you examine the lyrics more closely, you see that a few of the lines seem to be specifically about a mother rather than a loved one in general.

Then you also read a recent interview with Escalade in which he mentions that he’s staying away from hardcore rap lyrics on his new album in an effort to be more mainstream and reach more potential fans. Finally, you notice that some of the lyrics in the song focus on not taking full advantage of the time we have with our loved ones. All of these pieces give you material to write a more complex thesis statement, maybe something like this:

“In the hit song ‘Missing You,’ Escalade draws on his experience of losing his mother and raps about the importance of not taking time with family for granted in order to connect with a broad audience.”

Such a thesis statement is focused while still allowing plenty of room for support in the body of your paper. It addresses the questions posed above:

• The claim is that Escalade connects with a broader audience by rapping about the importance of not taking time with family for granted in his hit song, “Missing You.”
• This claim is supported in the lyrics of the song and through the “experience of losing his mother.”
• The implications are that we should not take valuable things for granted.

Certainly, there may be many ways for you to address “what,” “how,” and “so what,” and you may want to explore other ideas, but the above example is just one way to more fully analyze the material. Note that the example above is not formulaic, but if you need help getting started, you could use this template format to help develop your thesis statement.

Through ________________(how?), we can see that __________________(what?), which is important because ___________________(so what?). [1]

Just remember to think about these questions (what? how? and so what?) as you try to determine why something is what it is or why something means what it means. Asking these questions can help you analyze a song, story, or work of art, and can also help you construct meaningful thesis sentences when you write an analytical paper.

Key Takeaways for analytical theses

Don’t be afraid to let your claim evolve organically . If you find that your thinking and writing don’t stick exactly to the thesis statement you have constructed, your options are to scrap the writing and start again to make it fit your claim (which might not always be possible) or to modify your thesis statement. The latter option can be much easier if you are okay with the changes. As with many projects in life, writing doesn’t always go in the direction we plan, and strong analysis may mean thinking about and making changes as you look more closely at your topic. Be flexible.

Use analysis to get you to the main claim. You may have heard the simile that analysis is like peeling an onion because you have to go through layers to complete your work. You can start the process of breaking down an idea or an artifact without knowing where it will lead you or without a main claim or idea to guide you. Often, careful assessment of the pieces will bring you to an interesting interpretation of the whole. In their text Writing Analytically , authors David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen posit that being analytical doesn’t mean just breaking something down. It also means constructing understandings. Don’t assume you need to have deeper interpretations all figured out as you start your work.

When you decide upon the main claim, make sure it is reasoned . In other words, if it is very unlikely anyone else would reach the same interpretation you are making, it might be off base. Not everyone needs to see an idea the same way you do, but a reasonable person should be able to understand, if not agree, with your analysis.

Look for analytical thesis statements in the following activity.

https://lumenlearning.h5p.com/content/1290920118213584118/embed

Using Evidence

An effective analytical thesis statement (or claim) may sound smart or slick, but it requires evidence to be fully realized. Consider movie trailers and the actual full-length movies they advertise as an analogy. If you see an exciting one-minute movie trailer online and then go see the film only to leave disappointed because all the good parts were in the trailer, you feel cheated, right? You think you were promised something that didn’t deliver in its execution. A paper with a strong thesis statement but lackluster evidence feels the same way to readers.

So what does strong analytical evidence look like? Think again about “what,” “how,” and “so what.” A claim introduces these interpretations, and evidence lets you show them. Keep in mind that evidence used in writing analytically will build on itself as the piece progresses, much like a good movie builds to an interesting climax.

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/20272

Key Takeaways about evidence

Be selective about evidence. Having a narrow thesis statement will help you be selective with evidence, but even then, you don’t need to include any and every piece of information related to your main claim. Consider the best points to back up your analytic thesis statement and go deeply into them. (Also, remember that you may modify your thesis statement as you think and write, so being selective about what evidence you use in an analysis may actually help you narrow down what was a broad main claim as you work.) Refer back to our movie theme in this section: You have probably seen plenty of films that would have been better with some parts cut out and more attention paid to intriguing but underdeveloped characters and/or ideas.

Be clear and explicit with your evidence. Don’t assume that readers know exactly what you are thinking. Make your points and explain them in detail, providing information and context for readers, where necessary. Remember that analysis is critical examination and interpretation, but you can’t just assume that others always share or intuit your line of thinking. Need a movie analogy? Think back on all the times you or someone you know has said something like “I’m not sure what is going on in this movie.”

Move past obvious interpretations. Analyzing requires brainpower. Writing analytically is even more difficult. Don’t, however, try to take the easy way out by using obvious evidence (or working from an obvious claim). Many times writers have a couple of great pieces of evidence to support an interesting interpretation, but they feel the need to tack on an obvious idea—often more of an observation than analysis—somewhere in their work. This tendency may stem from the conventions of the five-paragraph essay, which features three points of support. Writing analytically, though, does not mean writing a five-paragraph essay (not much writing in college does). Develop your other evidence further or modify your main idea to allow room for additional strong evidence, but avoid obvious observations as support for your main claim. One last movie comparison? Go take a look at some of the debate on predictable Hollywood scripts. Have you ever watched a movie and felt like you have seen it before? You have, in one way or another. A sharp reader will be about as interested in obvious evidence as he or she will be in seeing a tired script reworked for the thousandth time.

One type of analysis you may be asked to write is a literary analysis, in which you examine a piece of text by breaking it down and looking for common literary elements, such as character, symbolism, plot, setting, imagery, and tone.

The video below compares writing a literary analysis to analyzing a team’s chances of winning a game—just as you would look at various factors like the weather, coaching, players, their record, and their motivation for playing. Similarly, when analyzing a literary text you want to look at all of the literary elements that contribute to the work.

The video takes you through the story of Cinderalla as an example, following the simplest possible angle (or thesis statement), that “Dreams can come true if you don’t give up.” (Note that if you were really asked to analyze Cinderella for a college class, you would want to dig deeper to find a more nuanced and interesting theme, but it works well for this example.) To analyze the story with this theme in mind, you’d want to consider the literary elements such as imagery, characters, dialogue, symbolism, the setting, plot, and tone, and consider how each of these contribute to the message that “Dreams can come true if you don’t give up.”

You can view the transcript for “How to Analyze Literature” here (opens in new window) .

• UCLA Undergraduate Writing Center. "What, How and So What?" Approaching the Thesis as a Process. https://wp.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/UWC_handouts_What-How-So-What-Thesis-revised-5-4-15-RZ.pdf ↵

Contributors and Attributions

• Keys to Successful Analysis. Authored by : Guy Krueger. Provided by : University of Mississippi. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Thesis Statement Activity. Authored by : Excelsior OWL. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/research/thesis-or-focus/thesis-or-focus-thesis-statement-activity/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• What is Analysis?. Authored by : Karen Forgette. Provided by : University of Mississippi. License : CC BY: Attribution
• How to Analyze Literature. Provided by : HACC, Central Pennsylvania's Community College. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr4BjZkQ5Nc . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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<strong>Guidelines</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>Writing</strong> a <strong>Case</strong> <strong>Study</strong> <strong>Analysis</strong><br />

A case study analysis requires you to investigate a business problem, examine the alternative<br />

solutions, and propose the most effective solution using supporting evidence.<br />

Preparing the <strong>Case</strong><br />

Be<strong>for</strong>e you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case<br />

study:<br />

1. Read and examine the case thoroughly<br />

• Take notes, highlight relevant facts, underline key problems.<br />

2. Focus your analysis<br />

• Identify two to five key problems<br />

• Why do they exist<br />

• How do they impact the organization<br />

• Who is responsible <strong>for</strong> them<br />

3. Uncover possible solutions<br />

• Review course readings, discussions, outside research, your experience.<br />

4. Select the best solution<br />

• Consider strong supporting evidence, pros, and cons: is this solution realistic<br />

Drafting the <strong>Case</strong><br />

Once you have gathered the necessary in<strong>for</strong>mation, a draft of your analysis should include these<br />

sections:<br />

1. Introduction<br />

• Identify the key problems and issues in the case study.<br />

• Formulate and include a thesis statement, summarizing the outcome of your analysis in<br />

1–2 sentences.<br />

2. Background<br />

• Set the scene: background in<strong>for</strong>mation, relevant facts, and the most important issues.<br />

• Demonstrate that you have researched the problems in this case study.

3. Alternatives<br />

• Outline possible alternatives (not necessarily all of them)<br />

• Explain why alternatives were rejected<br />

• Constraints/reasons<br />

• Why are alternatives not possible at this time<br />

4. Proposed Solution<br />

• Provide one specific and realistic solution<br />

• Explain why this solution was chosen<br />

• Support this solution with solid evidence<br />

• Concepts from class (text readings, discussions, lectures)<br />

• Outside research<br />

• Personal experience (anecdotes)<br />

5. Recommendations<br />

• Determine and discuss specific strategies <strong>for</strong> accomplishing the proposed solution.<br />

• If applicable, recommend further action to resolve some of the issues<br />

• What should be done and who should do it<br />

Finalizing the <strong>Case</strong><br />

After you have composed the first draft of your case study analysis, read through it to check <strong>for</strong><br />

any gaps or inconsistencies in content or structure: Is your thesis statement clear and direct<br />

Have you provided solid evidence Is any component from the analysis missing<br />

When you make the necessary revisions, proofread and edit your analysis be<strong>for</strong>e submitting the<br />

final draft. (Refer to Proofreading and Editing Strategies and 20 Common <strong>Writing</strong> Errors to<br />

guide you at this stage.)

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<strong>Guidelines</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>Writing</strong> a <strong>Case</strong> <strong>Study</strong> <strong>Analysis</strong> A case study analysis requires you to investigate a business problem, examine the alternative solutions, and propose the most effective solution using supporting evidence. Preparing the <strong>Case</strong> Be<strong>for</strong>e you begin writing, follow these guidelines to help you prepare and understand the case study: 1. Read and examine the case thoroughly • Take notes, highlight relevant facts, underline key problems. 2. Focus your analysis • Identify two to five key problems • Why do they exist • How do they impact the organization • Who is responsible <strong>for</strong> them 3. Uncover possible solutions • Review course readings, discussions, outside research, your experience. 4. Select the best solution • Consider strong supporting evidence, pros, and cons: is this solution realistic Drafting the <strong>Case</strong> Once you have gathered the necessary in<strong>for</strong>mation, a draft of your analysis should include these sections: 1. Introduction • Identify the key problems and issues in the case study. • Formulate and include a thesis statement, summarizing the outcome of your analysis in 1–2 sentences. 2. Background • Set the scene: background in<strong>for</strong>mation, relevant facts, and the most important issues. • Demonstrate that you have researched the problems in this case study.

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