curved arrows

Common Mistakes: How not to draw resonance curved arrows

January 10, 2012

No discussion of resonance structures would be complete without mention of how to royally screw them up. This isn’t something to feel bad about, by the way: there isn’t a chemist alive who hasn’t made one of these mistakes at some point. Think of it as a rite of passage. The trick is to make the mistakes [...]

Tagged as: curved arrows, mistakes, resonance

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Introduction to Resonance (2) : Curved Arrows!!

November 30, 2011

So last time I talked about resonance forms as being two (or more) different ways to draw the same molecule, which differ only in their distribution of electrons. Let’s look a little more closely at these resonance forms and ask, “what’s different?”, and be as specific as possible. In both cases the resonance form on the [...]

Tagged as: curved arrows, formal charge, resonance

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