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A man with amnesia taught us how memories become personal.

Photo illustration by Slate

Kent Cochrane, the amnesiac known throughout the world of neuroscience and psychology as K.C., died last week at age 62 in his nursing home in Toronto, probably of a stroke or heart attack . Although not as celebrated as the late American amnesiac H.M., for my money K.C. taught us more important and poignant things about how memory works. He showed how we make memories personal and personally meaningful. He also had a heck of a life story.

During a wild and extended adolescence, K.C. jammed in rock bands, partied at Mardi Gras, played cards till all hours, and got into fights in bars; he was also knocked unconscious twice, once in a dune-buggy accident, once when a bale of hay conked him on the head. In October 1981, at age 30, he skidded off an exit ramp on his motorcycle. He spent a month in intensive care and lost, among other brain structures, both his hippocampuses.

As H.M.’s case demonstrated in the early 1950s, the hippocampus—you have one in each hemisphere of your brain—helps form and store new memories and retrieve old ones. Without a functioning hippocampus, names, dates, and other information falls straight through the mind like a sieve. At least that’s what supposed to happen. K.C. proved that that’s not quite true—memories can sometimes bypass the hippocampus.

After the motorcycle accident, K.C. lost most of his past memories and could make almost no new memories. But a neuroscientist named Endel Tulving began studying K.C., and he determined that K.C. could remember certain things from his past life just fine. Oddly, though, everything K.C. remembered fell within one restricted category: It was all stuff you could look up in reference books, like the difference between stalactites and stalagmites or between spares and strikes in bowling. Tulving called these bare facts “semantic memories,” memories devoid of all context and emotion.

At the same time K.C. had zero “episodic memory”—no memories of things he’d personally done or felt or seen. For instance, in 1979 K.C. surprised his family the night before his brother’s wedding by getting a perm. For the rest of his life he knew his brother had gotten married and could recognize family members in the wedding album (the facts), but he didn’t remember being at the wedding and had no idea how his family reacted to his curly hair (the personal experiences).

The little that K.C. did retain about his pre-accident life sounds like something he looked up in a particularly dry biography of himself. Even pivotal moments had been reduced to bullet points in an index. He knew his family had to abandon his childhood home because a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals nearby; he knew a beloved brother died two years before his own accident. But these events had no emotional import anymore. They were just stuff that happened.

This work, along with studies of similar patients, provided strong evidence that our episodic and semantic memories rely on different brain circuits. The hippocampus helps record both types of memories initially, and it helps retain them for the medium term. The hippocampus also helps us access old personal memories in long-term storage in other parts of the brain. But to access old semantic memories, the brain seems to use the parahippocampus, an extension of the hippocampus on the brain’s southernmost surface. K.C., whose parahippocampuses survived, could therefore remember to sink the eight ball last in pool (semantic knowledge), even though every last memory of playing pool with his buddies had disappeared (personal knowledge).

What’s more, while a healthy hippocampus usually records new semantic, factual memories, the parahippocampus can—albeit excruciatingly slowly—absorb new facts if it has to. For instance, after years of shelving books as a volunteer at a local library, K.C.’s parahippocampus learned the Dewey decimal system, even though he had no idea why he knew it.

Scientists later realized that H.M., who also had a healthy parahippocampus, had similarly picked up a few choice facts after the 1953 surgery that destroyed his hippocampuses. H.M. loved doing crossword puzzles, and after seeing the clue a thousand times, he dimly recalled that “Salk vaccine target” equaled P-O-L-I-O. And through incessant references, H.M. retained a sliver of information about the 1969 moon landing and 1963 Kennedy assassination. Unlike all the people who, according to the cliché, knew exactly where they were when they learned those things, H.M. didn’t—that’s episodic memory. But he retained the basic fact.  

In general, all memories are probably stored as personal memories initially: You might have first learned that Abraham Lincoln was the 16 th president while on a field trip to Washington or more likely when you got that item wrong on a quiz and it got seared into your brain. After that, however, the memory gradually shifted to become semantic, and you retained only the more abstract knowledge that Abe = 16.

K.C. helped neuroscience come to grips with another important distinction in memory research, between recollection and familiarity. Colloquially, recollection means I specifically remember this , while familiarity means this sounds familiar, even if the details are fuzzy . And sure enough, the brain makes the same distinction. In one test, K.C.’s doctors compiled a list of words (El Niño, posse) that entered the common parlance after his accident in 1981. They then sprinkled those recent words into a list of pseudowords—strings of letters that looked like plausible words but that meant nothing. Time and again K.C. picked out the real word and did so with confidence. But when asked to define the word, he shrugged. From a list of common names he could pick out the names of famous people, even those who had become famous after 1981 (Bill Clinton). But he had no inkling what Clinton had done. In other words, K.C. found these terms familiar, even though specific recollection eluded him. This indicates that recollection once again requires the hippocampus, while a feeling of familiarity requires only certain patches of cortex.

K.C.’s memory loss also had the profound and paradoxical effect of wiping out his future. For the last three decades of his life, he couldn’t have told you what he planned to do over the next hour, the next day, the next year. He couldn’t even imagine those things.

It’s not entirely clear why, but it probably runs deeper than K.C.’s inability to remember his plans. It’s possible that the hippocampus is necessary to project yourself into the future and imagine personally experiencing things in the same way that the hippocampus allows you to put yourself back in time and re-experience the sights, sounds, and emotions of past memories. That’s what your personal memories are really all about.

This loss of his future didn’t pain K.C.; he didn’t suffer or rue his fate. But in some ways that lack of suffering seems sad in itself.

Still, there’s one thing K.C. never lost—his sense of self, his sense of who he was deep down. He knew his own personality traits and knew where he came from. Knew his likes and dislikes and what he looked like in the mirror. Kent Cochrane always knew he was Kent Cochrane—not even severe trauma could take that away from him.

That’s actually a common theme in the neuroscience of accidents. It’s easy to see the victims of brain damage as reduced or diminished, and they are in some ways. But much of what they feel from moment to moment is exactly what you or I feel, and there’s almost nothing short of death that can make you forget who you are. Amid all the fascinating injuries in neuroscience history, you’ll come across a lot of tales of woe and heartbreak. But there’s an amazing amount of resiliency in the brain, too.

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From One Man's Damaged Brain, A Treasure Trove Of Research On Memory

When Kent Cochrane survived a motorcycle accident in 1981, he emerged with types of amnesia so rare that his brain became one of the most studied in history. He died this year at 62.

ARUN RATH, HOST:

Kent Cochrane, an amnesiac known widely as KC, died this year at 62. After a motorcycle accident in 1981, Cochrane lost the use of a part of his brain that had been considered essential for memory. He then shocked his doctors by being able to remember some things - facts, but not personal memories. That fundamentally changed our understanding of how the brain remembers. Shayna Rosenbaum is a principal investigator at the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Toronto's York University, and she worked directly with KC.

SHAYNA ROSENBAUM: He would remember people that he knew from prior to the time of his injury, so he knew who his parents were. He knew what friends that he had in the past. He knew how he had formed those relationships. But what he was unable to remember were details relating to those individuals. For instance, he wouldn't remember the last time that he had laughed with one of those individuals. He couldn't remember his own high school graduation, even though he knew that he had graduated.

RATH: Can you tell us how this understanding of how these brain structures work when it comes to memory - what it means for science or even helping people who might have suffered memory loss or brain damage?

ROSENBAUM: Well, the structure of the brain, the hippocampus, which is responsible for forming new memories and for retaining old ones is vulnerable to a wide range of neurological conditions, including not only head injury, but also Alzheimer's disease, encephalitis, epilepsy. So many people, unfortunately, suffer from certain forms of memory loss. But what we've learned is that not all forms of memory are affected, so memory is not just one thing. And we've learned from cases like KC that patients can, in fact, rely on the types of memories that are spared, such as memory for facts about the world and about oneself in order to compensate for those aspects that are impaired.

RATH: You worked with KC - with Ken Cochrane - directly. Did he understand the importance of what was being learned from his condition?

ROSENBAUM: I believe that in the moment, he did. When we drew his attention to the many contributions that he had made to our understanding of memory, he himself was blown away. He would often show amazement when we would show him a newspaper article that was written about him. And when we explained how we now understand that memory is not one thing based on studies involving him, he really did seem to appreciate the types of contributions that this made to our understanding of memory.

RATH: Shayna Rosenbaum is a principal investigator in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at York University in Toronto. Thanks so much.

ROSENBAUM: Thank you very much.

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• neuroscience

Neuropathology of a remarkable case of memory impairment informs human memory

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Anatomic Pathology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• 2 L.C. Campbell Cognitive Neurology Research Group, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• 3 Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• 4 Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Psychology and Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) Program, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].
• PMID: 31972232
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107342

Kent Cochrane (K.C.) has been investigated by researchers for nearly three decades after intracranial trauma from a motorcycle accident at age 30 resulted in a striking profile of amnesia. K.C. suffered severe anterograde amnesia in both verbal and non-verbal domains which was accompanied by selective retrograde amnesia for personal events experienced prior to the time of his injury (episodic memory), with relative preservation of memory for personal and world facts (semantic memory), and of implicit memory. This pattern of spared and impaired memory extended to spatial memory for large-scale environments and beyond memory to future imagining and decision-making. Post-mortem brain findings at age 62 included moderate diffuse atrophy, left orbitofrontal contusion, left posterior cerebral artery infarct, and left anterior frontal watershed infarct. Notably, there was severe neuronal loss and gliosis of the hippocampi bilaterally. The left hippocampus was severely affected anteriorly and posteriorly, but CA2, CA4, and the dentate gyrus (DG) were focally spared. There was associated degeneration of the left fornix. The right hippocampus showed near complete destruction anteriorly, with relative preservation posteriorly, mainly of CA4 and DG. Bilateral parahippocampal gyri and left anterior thalamus also showed neuron loss and gliosis. There was no evidence of co-existing neurodegenerative phenomena on beta-amyloid, phosphorylated tau, or TDP-43 immunostaining. The extent of damage to medial temporal lobe structures is in keeping with K.C.'s profound anterograde and retrograde amnesia, with the exception of the unexpected finding of preserved CA2/CA4 and DG. K.C.'s case demonstrates that relatively clean functional dissociations are still possible following widespread brain damage, with structurally compromised brain regions unlikely to be critical to cognitive functions found to be intact. In this way, the findings presented here add to K.C.'s significant contributions to our understanding of clinical-anatomical relationships in memory.

Keywords: Amnesia; Episodic memory; Ex-vivo MRI; Medial temporal lobes; Neurohistology; Patient K.C..

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publication types

• Case Reports
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
• Accidents, Traffic
• Amnesia, Retrograde*
• Hippocampus / diagnostic imaging
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Memory Disorders* / etiology
• Middle Aged
• Neuropsychological Tests
• Temporal Lobe

Grants and funding

• MOP 125958/CIHR/Canada

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The case of K.C.: contributions of a memory-impaired person to memory theory

2005, Neuropsychologia

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The case of K.C.: Contributions of a memory-impaired person to memory theory

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• Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 62

Case Study Research Method in Psychology

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

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On This Page:

Case studies are in-depth investigations of a person, group, event, or community. Typically, data is gathered from various sources using several methods (e.g., observations & interviews).

The case study research method originated in clinical medicine (the case history, i.e., the patient’s personal history). In psychology, case studies are often confined to the study of a particular individual.

The information is mainly biographical and relates to events in the individual’s past (i.e., retrospective), as well as to significant events that are currently occurring in his or her everyday life.

The case study is not a research method, but researchers select methods of data collection and analysis that will generate material suitable for case studies.

Freud (1909a, 1909b) conducted very detailed investigations into the private lives of his patients in an attempt to both understand and help them overcome their illnesses.

This makes it clear that the case study is a method that should only be used by a psychologist, therapist, or psychiatrist, i.e., someone with a professional qualification.

There is an ethical issue of competence. Only someone qualified to diagnose and treat a person can conduct a formal case study relating to atypical (i.e., abnormal) behavior or atypical development.

 Famous Case Studies

• Anna O – One of the most famous case studies, documenting psychoanalyst Josef Breuer’s treatment of “Anna O” (real name Bertha Pappenheim) for hysteria in the late 1800s using early psychoanalytic theory.
• Little Hans – A child psychoanalysis case study published by Sigmund Freud in 1909 analyzing his five-year-old patient Herbert Graf’s house phobia as related to the Oedipus complex.
• Bruce/Brenda – Gender identity case of the boy (Bruce) whose botched circumcision led psychologist John Money to advise gender reassignment and raise him as a girl (Brenda) in the 1960s.
• Genie Wiley – Linguistics/psychological development case of the victim of extreme isolation abuse who was studied in 1970s California for effects of early language deprivation on acquiring speech later in life.
• Phineas Gage – One of the most famous neuropsychology case studies analyzes personality changes in railroad worker Phineas Gage after an 1848 brain injury involving a tamping iron piercing his skull.

Clinical Case Studies

• Studying the effectiveness of psychotherapy approaches with an individual patient
• Assessing and treating mental illnesses like depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD
• Neuropsychological cases investigating brain injuries or disorders

Child Psychology Case Studies

• Studying psychological development from birth through adolescence
• Cases of learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD
• Effects of trauma, abuse, deprivation on development

Types of Case Studies

• Explanatory case studies : Used to explore causation in order to find underlying principles. Helpful for doing qualitative analysis to explain presumed causal links.
• Exploratory case studies : Used to explore situations where an intervention being evaluated has no clear set of outcomes. It helps define questions and hypotheses for future research.
• Descriptive case studies : Describe an intervention or phenomenon and the real-life context in which it occurred. It is helpful for illustrating certain topics within an evaluation.
• Multiple-case studies : Used to explore differences between cases and replicate findings across cases. Helpful for comparing and contrasting specific cases.
• Intrinsic : Used to gain a better understanding of a particular case. Helpful for capturing the complexity of a single case.
• Collective : Used to explore a general phenomenon using multiple case studies. Helpful for jointly studying a group of cases in order to inquire into the phenomenon.

Where Do You Find Data for a Case Study?

There are several places to find data for a case study. The key is to gather data from multiple sources to get a complete picture of the case and corroborate facts or findings through triangulation of evidence. Most of this information is likely qualitative (i.e., verbal description rather than measurement), but the psychologist might also collect numerical data.

1. Primary sources

• Interviews – Interviewing key people related to the case to get their perspectives and insights. The interview is an extremely effective procedure for obtaining information about an individual, and it may be used to collect comments from the person’s friends, parents, employer, workmates, and others who have a good knowledge of the person, as well as to obtain facts from the person him or herself.
• Observations – Observing behaviors, interactions, processes, etc., related to the case as they unfold in real-time.
• Documents & Records – Reviewing private documents, diaries, public records, correspondence, meeting minutes, etc., relevant to the case.

2. Secondary sources

• News/Media – News coverage of events related to the case study.
• Academic articles – Journal articles, dissertations etc. that discuss the case.
• Government reports – Official data and records related to the case context.
• Books/films – Books, documentaries or films discussing the case.

3. Archival records

Searching historical archives, museum collections and databases to find relevant documents, visual/audio records related to the case history and context.

Public archives like newspapers, organizational records, photographic collections could all include potentially relevant pieces of information to shed light on attitudes, cultural perspectives, common practices and historical contexts related to psychology.

4. Organizational records

Organizational records offer the advantage of often having large datasets collected over time that can reveal or confirm psychological insights.

Of course, privacy and ethical concerns regarding confidential data must be navigated carefully.

However, with proper protocols, organizational records can provide invaluable context and empirical depth to qualitative case studies exploring the intersection of psychology and organizations.

• Organizational/industrial psychology research : Organizational records like employee surveys, turnover/retention data, policies, incident reports etc. may provide insight into topics like job satisfaction, workplace culture and dynamics, leadership issues, employee behaviors etc.
• Clinical psychology : Therapists/hospitals may grant access to anonymized medical records to study aspects like assessments, diagnoses, treatment plans etc. This could shed light on clinical practices.
• School psychology : Studies could utilize anonymized student records like test scores, grades, disciplinary issues, and counseling referrals to study child development, learning barriers, effectiveness of support programs, and more.

How do I Write a Case Study in Psychology?

Follow specified case study guidelines provided by a journal or your psychology tutor. General components of clinical case studies include: background, symptoms, assessments, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Interpreting the information means the researcher decides what to include or leave out. A good case study should always clarify which information is the factual description and which is an inference or the researcher’s opinion.

1. Introduction

• Provide background on the case context and why it is of interest, presenting background information like demographics, relevant history, and presenting problem.
• Compare briefly to similar published cases if applicable. Clearly state the focus/importance of the case.

2. Case Presentation

• Describe the presenting problem in detail, including symptoms, duration,and impact on daily life.
• Include client demographics like age and gender, information about social relationships, and mental health history.
• Describe all physical, emotional, and/or sensory symptoms reported by the client.
• Use patient quotes to describe the initial complaint verbatim. Follow with full-sentence summaries of relevant history details gathered, including key components that led to a working diagnosis.
• Summarize clinical exam results, namely orthopedic/neurological tests, imaging, lab tests, etc. Note actual results rather than subjective conclusions. Provide images if clearly reproducible/anonymized.
• Clearly state the working diagnosis or clinical impression before transitioning to management.

3. Management and Outcome

• Indicate the total duration of care and number of treatments given over what timeframe. Use specific names/descriptions for any therapies/interventions applied.
• Present the results of the intervention,including any quantitative or qualitative data collected.
• For outcomes, utilize visual analog scales for pain, medication usage logs, etc., if possible. Include patient self-reports of improvement/worsening of symptoms. Note the reason for discharge/end of care.

4. Discussion

• Analyze the case, exploring contributing factors, limitations of the study, and connections to existing research.
• Analyze the effectiveness of the intervention,considering factors like participant adherence, limitations of the study, and potential alternative explanations for the results.
• Identify any questions raised in the case analysis and relate insights to established theories and current research if applicable. Avoid definitive claims about physiological explanations.
• Offer clinical implications, and suggest future research directions.

5. Additional Items

• Thank specific assistants for writing support only. No patient acknowledgments.
• References should directly support any key claims or quotes included.
• Use tables/figures/images only if substantially informative. Include permissions and legends/explanatory notes.
• Provides detailed (rich qualitative) information.
• Provides insight for further research.
• Permitting investigation of otherwise impractical (or unethical) situations.

Case studies allow a researcher to investigate a topic in far more detail than might be possible if they were trying to deal with a large number of research participants (nomothetic approach) with the aim of ‘averaging’.

Because of their in-depth, multi-sided approach, case studies often shed light on aspects of human thinking and behavior that would be unethical or impractical to study in other ways.

Research that only looks into the measurable aspects of human behavior is not likely to give us insights into the subjective dimension of experience, which is important to psychoanalytic and humanistic psychologists.

Case studies are often used in exploratory research. They can help us generate new ideas (that might be tested by other methods). They are an important way of illustrating theories and can help show how different aspects of a person’s life are related to each other.

The method is, therefore, important for psychologists who adopt a holistic point of view (i.e., humanistic psychologists ).

Limitations

• Lacking scientific rigor and providing little basis for generalization of results to the wider population.
• Researchers’ own subjective feelings may influence the case study (researcher bias).
• Difficult to replicate.
• Time-consuming and expensive.
• The volume of data, together with the time restrictions in place, impacted the depth of analysis that was possible within the available resources.

Because a case study deals with only one person/event/group, we can never be sure if the case study investigated is representative of the wider body of “similar” instances. This means the conclusions drawn from a particular case may not be transferable to other settings.

Because case studies are based on the analysis of qualitative (i.e., descriptive) data , a lot depends on the psychologist’s interpretation of the information she has acquired.

This means that there is a lot of scope for Anna O , and it could be that the subjective opinions of the psychologist intrude in the assessment of what the data means.

For example, Freud has been criticized for producing case studies in which the information was sometimes distorted to fit particular behavioral theories (e.g., Little Hans ).

This is also true of Money’s interpretation of the Bruce/Brenda case study (Diamond, 1997) when he ignored evidence that went against his theory.

Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1895).  Studies on hysteria . Standard Edition 2: London.

Curtiss, S. (1981). Genie: The case of a modern wild child .

Diamond, M., & Sigmundson, K. (1997). Sex Reassignment at Birth: Long-term Review and Clinical Implications. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine , 151(3), 298-304

Freud, S. (1909a). Analysis of a phobia of a five year old boy. In The Pelican Freud Library (1977), Vol 8, Case Histories 1, pages 169-306

Freud, S. (1909b). Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose (Der “Rattenmann”). Jb. psychoanal. psychopathol. Forsch ., I, p. 357-421; GW, VII, p. 379-463; Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis, SE , 10: 151-318.

Harlow J. M. (1848). Passage of an iron rod through the head.  Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 39 , 389–393.

Harlow, J. M. (1868).  Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head .  Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society. 2  (3), 327-347.

Money, J., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (1972).  Man & Woman, Boy & Girl : The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Money, J., & Tucker, P. (1975). Sexual signatures: On being a man or a woman.

Further Information

• Case Study Approach
• Case Study Method
• Enhancing the Quality of Case Studies in Health Services Research
• “We do things together” A case study of “couplehood” in dementia
• Using mixed methods for evaluating an integrative approach to cancer care: a case study

A case study is a research method that extensively explores a particular subject, situation, or individual through in-depth analysis, often to gain insights into real-world phenomena or complex issues. It involves the comprehensive examination of multiple data sources, such as interviews, observations, documents, and artifacts, to provide a rich and holistic understanding of the subject under investigation.

Case studies are conducted to:

• Investigate a specific problem, event, or phenomenon
• Explore unique or atypical situations
• Examine the complexities and intricacies of a subject in its natural context
• Develop theories, propositions, or hypotheses for further research
• Gain practical insights for decision-making or problem-solving

A typical case study consists of the following components:

• Introduction: Provides a brief background and context for the study, including the purpose and research questions.
• Case Description: Describes the subject of the case study, including its relevant characteristics, settings, and participants.
• Data Collection: Details the methods used to gather data, such as interviews, observations, surveys, or document analysis.
• Data Analysis: Explains the techniques employed to analyze the collected data and derive meaningful insights.
• Findings: Presents the key discoveries and outcomes of the case study in a logical and organized manner.
• Discussion: Interprets the findings, relates them to existing theories or frameworks, discusses their implications, and addresses any limitations.
• Conclusion: Summarizes the main findings, highlights the significance of the research, and suggests potential avenues for future investigations.

Case studies offer several benefits, including:

• Providing a deep understanding of complex and context-dependent phenomena
• Generating detailed and rich qualitative data
• Allowing researchers to explore multiple perspectives and factors influencing the subject
• Offering practical insights for professionals and practitioners
• Allowing for the examination of rare or unique occurrences that cannot be replicated in experimental settings

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Case study definition

Case study, a term which some of you may know from the "Case Study of Vanitas" anime and manga, is a thorough examination of a particular subject, such as a person, group, location, occasion, establishment, phenomena, etc. They are most frequently utilized in research of business, medicine, education and social behaviour. There are a different types of case studies that researchers might use:

• Collective case studies

• Descriptive case studies

• Explanatory case studies

• Exploratory case studies

• Instrumental case studies

• Intrinsic case studies

Case studies are usually much more sophisticated and professional than regular essays and courseworks, as they require a lot of verified data, are research-oriented and not necessarily designed to be read by the general public.

How to write a case study?

It very much depends on the topic of your case study, as a medical case study and a coffee business case study have completely different sources, outlines, target demographics, etc. But just for this example, let's outline a coffee roaster case study. Firstly, it's likely going to be a problem-solving case study, like most in the business and economics field are. Here are some tips for these types of case studies:

• Your case scenario should be precisely defined in terms of your unique assessment criteria.

• Determine the primary issues by analyzing the scenario. Think about how they connect to the main ideas and theories in your piece.

• Find and investigate any theories or methods that might be relevant to your case.

• Keep your audience in mind. Exactly who are your stakeholder(s)? If writing a case study on coffee roasters, it's probably gonna be suppliers, landlords, investors, customers, etc.

• Indicate the best solution(s) and how they should be implemented. Make sure your suggestions are grounded in pertinent theories and useful resources, as well as being realistic, practical, and attainable.

• Carefully proofread your case study. Keep in mind these four principles when editing: clarity, honesty, reality and relevance.

Are there any online services that could write a case study for me?

Luckily, there are!

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The ordering process is fully online, and it goes as follows:

• Select the topic and the deadline of your case study.

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Finished Papers

How do essay writing services work?

In the modern world, any company is trying to modernize its services. And services for writing scientific papers are no exception. Therefore, now it is very easy to order work and does not take time:

• First, you need to choose a good site that you can trust. Read their privacy policies, guarantees, payment methods and of course reviews. It will be a big plus that examples of work are presented on the online platform.
• Next, you need to contact a manager who will answer all the necessary questions and advise on the terms of cooperation. He will tell you about the acceptable writing deadlines, provide information about the author, and calculate the price of the essay.
• After that, you sign the contract and during the indicated days stay in touch with the employee of the company.
• Then you receive the file, read it attentively and transfer a certain amount to the company's bank card. After payment, the client downloads the document to his computer and can write a review and suggestions.

On the site Essayswriting, you get guarantees, thanks to which you will be confident and get rid of the excitement. The client can ask any questions about the writing and express special preferences.

What is a good essay writing service?

Oddly enough, but many people still have not come across a quality service. A large number of users fall for deceivers who take their money without doing their job. And some still fulfill the agreements, but very badly.

A good essay writing service should first of all provide guarantees:

• confidentiality of personal information;
• for the terms of work;
• for the timely transfer of the text to the customer;
• for the previously agreed amount of money.

The company must have a polite support service that will competently advise the client, answer all questions and support until the end of the cooperation. Also, the team must get out of conflict situations correctly.

It is necessary to have several payment methods on the site to make it easier for the client to transfer money.

And of course, only highly qualified writers with a philological education should be present in the team, who will not make spelling and punctuation errors in the text, checking all the information and not stealing it from extraneous sites.

Susan Devlin

How safe will my data be with you?

The first step in making your write my essay request is filling out a 10-minute order form. Submit the instructions, desired sources, and deadline. If you want us to mimic your writing style, feel free to send us your works. In case you need assistance, reach out to our 24/7 support team.