Below is a video that reviews the model case study analysis submittted by a former student in this course. You can download a copy of the model paper here.

The sample paper is not perfect. But it recevied a high grade because it (1) met all of the assignment requirements; (2) demonstrated the student's ability to think critically about course material and integrate that material into an analysis of a case; and (3) was well written and corrected formatted according to the APA style guide.

Beneath the video is a full transcript of the video's contents.

Video Transcript
You’re a lucky student. Why? Because your instructor has provided a sample model paper from a former student for you to follow as you research and compose your case analysis for this class. You can download a copy of that paper from this workshop!

Before you do, let’s take just a few minutes to highlight some of the main features of the model paper that your teacher will be looking for in yours, too.

First, let’s recall that the assignment directions specify three major divisions for the paper:

In addition, these parts are to be identified by subheadings. Let’s take a look at how this student did it.

On the first body page, you see a repetition of the main title, as APA calls for. Then comes the first major heading--Presenting Complaint and Personal History. It is a level-one APA subheading, which means it is centered, boldfaced, and all major words are capitalized.

Remember, the first section of this paper is based on the information provided in the case summary. That information is NOT to be quoted. You should only paraphrase the case study information, which means to put it into your own phrases and sentences.

The second section is the Diagnosis, Treatment and Prognosis, another APA Level One subheading. It begins with the diagnosis, which must be based upon the DSM.

After the diagnosis comes the section on treatment, which consists of these four paragraphs.

The diagnosis section is followed by the prognosis in these three paragraphs. Remember, beginning in the diagnosis section and continuing through the remainder of the paper, you must begin using peer-reviewed sources to support your insights and recommendations.

The third major section is labeled “Discussion,” where the use of sources is also expected. This student author first discusses the diagnosis of Adam and justifies it further. Then comes the required Theoretical Perspectives section. A brief intro tells us that the student author has chosen five theoretical frameworks to discuss Adam’s diagnosis.

Note that each of the theories is discussed in its own paragraph-- Biological Theories, Psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and family system.

Lastly, there is the summary of the entire case, which is introduced by a level one APA subheading.

Now let’s focus on some of the APA aspects of the case study analysis that your teacher expects. First is the title page. It has a running head and page number in the page header area. The running head on the title page is different than all the other pages. So please refer to the workshop thread on how to set up an APA document to learn to do this.

In the approximate center of the page is the full title: Adam: A Case Study of Conduct Disorder and Alcohol Dependence. Then double space, followed by your name, then another double space followed by the name of your school. And that is all that belongs on the title page.

On the first body page, the running head continues, but this time it contains only the shortened title. Each body paragraph is indented one half inch. And remember that APA calls for 12-point Times New Roman font throughout, and also double spacing only throughout.

OK, now it’s time to look at citations.

First, note that the information in the presenting complaint and personal history sections is taken from the case summary provided to you. The use of academic sources comes into play beginning in the diagnosis section, where the DSM IV is first referenced. Like all in-text citations, it conforms to the following principles:

• Author last name followed by a comma and the year of publication in parentheses. Here the author is the APA or American Psychiatric Association.
• Since the entire book is being referenced, no page numbers are used.
• The in-text citation can refer only to the sentence it is a part of, which is why the period for the sentence goes after the citation.
• The in-text citation refers to the full reference citation in alphabetical order on the last page. Here you see the full and correct way to cite the DSM IV revised text. Note that when the publishing company is the same as the author, the word author is used.
  

Another type of in-text citation uses the author or authors’ name as part of the sentence and thus they are not in parentheses. Here in the prognosis section you see several examples. Steiner and Dunn (1997) is an in-text citation although the names are outside the parentheses. If we scroll to the S’s on the reference list you see the full citation for Steiner and Dunn.

Have you ever wondered how to cite a source you found inside another source? There are several examples of this type of citation in this paper. Let’s look at this sentence. “According to Sampson and Laub’s findings, marriage to a female with no history of conduct issues can encourage young men to permanently disengage from delinquent activity (Nolen-Hoeksma, 2006, p. 475).

Note that there is no year after Sampson and Laub. That’s because the Sampson and Laub source was found inside of Nolen-Hoeksma, which is what must be cited at the end of the sentence because that’s where the reference to the Sampson/Laub article was found on page 475.

Finally, let’s take a look at the References page. Note that the references are on a page by themselves, that the word References is plural and centered, but not boldfaced. The reference citations are all double-spaced and use hanging indentation. Also notice use of the ampersand to join the last author in a list of more than one author.

Let me leave you with this tip for getting good APA citations: CiteFast. It is a free citation generator. For most academic journal articles, all you have to do is copy and paste in the title, click on search, and then select the article you wish to cite. Let’s do a few.

Let’s copy and paste “Association between childhood physical abuse, exposure to parental abuse, and alcohol problems in adulthood” in and hit search. When we see the article we want, we simply click on select, and Cite Fast gives us the full citation for the references page and the in-text citation format. Note that Cite Fast is also saying to use sentence case for the title, which means you capitalize only the first word of a title and any proper noun in APA

One more, “The relation between violence exposure and conduct problems among adolescents: a prospective study”—there it is. We select it. And don’t forget to change the title case.

Good luck! See you in the workshop.