My comments:
If you understand case as in a legal case, you’ll have no problem understanding how people BUILD their cases.
If a private detective is convinced that John Doe murdered his rich neighbor, for example, he needs to build the case if he wants to bring the matter to court. He has, you see, to prove to the court that John Doe did it, by providing all the evidences he can gather and garner.
If he has beyond-reasonable-doubt evidences that prove John Doe did it, then he has a case, as they say. That means he has enough good arguments to convince the judge that John Doe did it.
All the time and effort he spends in gathering the evidences, then, is what he uses to build his case.
In our example, since you want to build the case for improving the way your company deals with corruption, you need to provide all the good reasons why doing so is helpful to the company.
In short, you “build the case” in the same way you BUILD a building, adding bits and pieces till you have a complete building, one that is tall and one that stands on solid ground.
Or, as a matter of fact, in the same way you build your vocabulary.
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About the author:
Zhang Xin(张欣) has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.