Genre Analysis of Case Reports: A Platform for Training Academic Writing to Medical Students

The present study examined the macrostructure of published Case Reports (CRs) to provide information about the organizational structure of CRs and to develop a framework that can respond to the urgent needs of students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS). Overall, 100 published reports were selected from the established journals and were analyzed following the Swealsian (1990) model of genre analysis. Another set of data included 32 CRs written by medical students who were invited to report a case, in English, they recently observed during their clinical courses in 2019. Following awareness raising tasks, the students’ reports were compared to published CRs. Findings demonstrated variations in the obligatory and optional moves and steps in each section of a case report. The differences can be ascribed to the specific nature of each case and the distinct medical procedures. The study concludes that familiarizing novice researchers with the generic structure of standard case reports can be helpful in understanding medical case reports.