Preparing Case Studies

Advice from the exam board

In all components, candidates will be expected to support their answers with reference to examples and case studies at different scales (local, regional, national and international) from a variety of places.

Where relevant, examples should include material from places at different levels of development.

The syllabus provides the opportunity to select your own case studies to illustrate the content. Where possible, case studies should be dated no earlier than 1980.

Case studies should be real, rather than theoretical, to allow candidates opportunity to examine the conflicts of interest and viewpoints of different groups of people affected by the geographical environment, initiative or hazard being studied.

Where possible candidates should assess the relative success or failure of initiatives.

Case-study-write-up-template.pptx

A brief guide to creating great case studies

There is no set way in which you should approach case studies, however using the rule of the ‘five Ws’ is always a good place to start. The attached template may help.

The ‘six Ws’ are:

What happened?
When did it happen?
Where did it happen?
Why did it happen?
Who was affected by it happening?
What was done about it?

Case studies MUST have place specific information.

More details to help you with the '6 Ws'

What happened?

- - Can you explain some background on what actually happened?
  - Can you use some facts and figures?

When did it happen?

- - What was the date(s)?
  - What time of day did it occur?
  - Did this change the outcome?

Where did it happen?

- - The geographical setting is very important, for example, was it rural or urban?
  - Is the case study for an HIC/MIC/LIC - what difference did this make?
  - Name the location and the country, and add it to the map

Why did it happen?

- - What causes the case study incident/events to occur?
  - Were natural systems interacting with human activity?

Who was affected by it happening?

- - Which group of people were (most) affected?
  - How many were affected?
  - Can you say something about the wealth of the people affected or the influence of development?
  - Did anyone try and help?

google-tips-and-tricks.pdf

Google Power Searching

"Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time. This means that any information it contains at any particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong. Wikipedia generally uses reliable secondary sources, which vet data from primary sources."

The above quote came from Wikipedia....so is it reliable or not?

In short, it is useful, but as a serious academic you ought to be more wide-ranging and CRAAP test your sources. Power searching can help filter the good from the great. Saving you time and effort.

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