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Do you think it's better to write the risk assessment before or after the method? (1 Viewer)

Schoey93

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I don't know why this comes under Chemistry. It's a generic senior sciences question. Risk assessments are done in all HSC science courses' reports.


And from doing the School Certificate Science Independent Research Project, I know that the risk assessment is best written after the method. That way readers of your report can see the method, look down and right underneath the method they are then able to read what safety precautions they should take, relate it the method and commence the experiment safely and cautiously. :)
 

Aerath

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There is no general Science forum. But Schoey93 is correct, with regards to his risk assessment being after the method.
 

Dx_God

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well, the truth is that in an actual science report, there is no risk assessment...seriously. the actual structure of a scientific report is something like this:

  • title
  • abstract
  • introduction
  • materials and methods
  • results
  • discussion
  • conclusion
  • acknowledgment
  • references
i've got multiple websites to back me up:
Scientific Report Writing
Scientific Reports
Institute for Applied Ecology
Report writing for scientists - guidance notes

so therefore ur placement of risk assessment is not really important. i'm sure ur teacher will accept it as long as u don't put it before the aim or after ur reference (even so most teachers would still give u the marks anyways). I'm sure ur teacher only wants to know whether u know what is risk assessment and what are the risks in ur experiment and how u controlled it (it's best to make up any bs than leave it blank)
 

Trebla

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Is it really after? In uni chemistry lab reports, the risk assessment is done before the method because in practice you are meant to assess the risks of your experiment before you actually do it, but then again we don't attach risk assessments to lab reports that often lol
 

randomnessss

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Is it really after? In uni chemistry lab reports, the risk assessment is done before the method because in practice you are meant to assess the risks of your experiment before you actually do it, but then again we don't attach risk assessments to lab reports that often lol
Yeah, I agree with the before the method approach since you have to know what you are working with and what potential dangers you may face while using the chemicals. Usually I'm told that the risk assessment is placed after the aim though.
 

Dragonmaster262

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There are a lot more resources for Chemistry on this site then there are for Physics and Biology.
 

Matt2233

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From my experience the risk assesment comes before the method.

This is so the precautions you have recomended for the experiments risks can be seen in your method.

If you wrote your method before your risk assesment, you would theoretically have to rewrite the method to show the safety you choose in the risk assesment.
 

brenton1987

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It should be part of the appendix at the end of the report followed by all the data.
 

Hope_

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All the templates I've seen places the risk assessment before the method
 

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