How to Format a Case Study Correctly
A case study examines the specific task or goal of a person or company and how they accomplished it. Case studies focus on specific details related to the original problem and applied solution. Usually, a case study usually tells the story of a business partnership between a supplier and a customer. We have already told what is a case study in detail, and now it’s time to understand how to format a case study.
What format do you need?
Before you get started, you must understand which formatting style to use. In North America, the two most common formats are MLA (Modern Languages Association) and APA (American Psychological Association). High schools and many undergraduate programs use the MLA format. Some graduate programs use the APA format. You may also occasionally face professors who prefer the Chicago (Chicago Style Guide) format, which is used for publication-oriented research such as books, technical guides, and journals. You can also work in other formats.
How to Write a Case Study in APA
We can say that the most common format style is the APA (American Psychological Association) Reference Style, which is used in a large number of journals. This style was developed by the American Psychological Association for use in the field of psychology and was later adopted by other disciplines.
Presently, the seventh updated edition of the APA standards is used, in which all the nuances of work design are indicated in detail. Citation in accordance with the APA style (7th edition) is carried out in two ways: in-text citation and out-of-text version (directly in the list of sources that were used in the case study).
If you want to know how to cite a case study in APA, you can follow the following pattern:
(Cage & Smith, 2018, pp. 14-17)
Use the last name of the author(s), followed by a comma and year of publication. Add page, chapter, or section numbers if you need to flesh out information, for example, if you quote, paraphrase, or summarize what the author said in his work.
Journal articles, online documents, books, and other formats are formatted similarly, except for electronic documents that do not contain page numbers. You can use the paragraph number of the quoted section, if available, with the abbreviation for that paragraph.
Full source information is provided in the references section at the end of the document:
Cage, G., & Smith, M.B. (2018). Human Being and Genetics (14th ed.). Book House.
The details of the source material will vary depending on the type of work cited, the number of authors, and which source is cited in the case study. All these details should be understood and used in the process of writing a case study; thus, you minimize the time that you will spend on its format.
The APA citation style has become one of the most famous in the world, and the association is constantly updating and modernizing it in order to comply with all modern trends in the field of scientific papers and search for information sources. All information on formatting is collected and well structured in the company’s collection, which you can order for yourself for detailed study.
How to Cite a Case Study: MLA
This style is most common in the format of case studies and when citing sources in the humanities. It was developed for use in English philology, for the study of other modern languages or literature, including comparative analysis, literary criticism, media research, cultural studies, and related disciplines. MLA style follows the goal of brevity and giving detail to identify the cited work and provide information concisely.
Use the author’s last name, as well as the page or section numbers if you need to provide specific information:
(Cage and Smith 45-46)
Full source information is provided in the works cited section at the end of the case study. The links in the list of cited works contain all the information someone needs to find your source, and they are arranged in alphabetical order by author.
Cage, Nicholas, and Samuel Smith. The Art of Literature. 4th ed. Big Whale, 2019.
How to Format in the Chicago Style
The style was created by the University of Chicago Press in 1906 for use in social sciences, and later, physical and natural sciences. A feature of the Chicago citation style (17th edition) is the ability, as in the APA style, to choose from several link formats: in the middle of the text or outside the text in the source section.
In the list of references, the source will be depicted as follows:
Nicolas Cage and Samuel Smith. 2019. SEO vs. SMM. 4th ed. London, UK: Black Pipes.
Conclusion
Now you know how to format a case study. Correct formatting of sources is an important stage in the preparation of the case study. That is why it is worth investigating this issue in detail and avoiding mistakes in the process of completing your project. In order to be 100% confident in your project, it is better to buy a case study. You will receive a sample of a project that will give you a clear understanding of how to deal with formatting properly.
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