I enjoyed the focus that Yin placed on rhetoric in his Case Study Research. Throughout the book, it seemed like he was familiar with composition theory—authors of case studies are encouraged to write throughout the process of gathering and analyzing evidence (128, 142), they are told that rigid plans will often need to be modified as the process progresses (74), and they are reminded of the importance of addressing their reports to a specific audience (132). As with the connection to rhetoric, I could see the connection to the type of work we are being asked to do in the class. Yin points out early in the book that although case studies are very similar to experiments in the types of questions that each can answer, case studies are the best method for looking at a phenomenon in context, in those cases where excluding the context (as experiments often do) would give an unclear picture of that phenomenon.
Beyond that, because I’ve never conducted a case study I don’t know what to write in response to the guidelines. They seem thorough to me. Does anyone else having any experience that you can relate to Yin’s advice?
