Summary Sheets

Summary Sheet: Functional Groups

August 21, 2012

I thought it would be good to make a summary sheet based on functional groups, so here one is: Functional Group Summary Sheet (PDF) You can find other sheets in the Summary Sheets section of this site. In addition, I made some extra summary sheets for Org 1 available on my Shopify Store (15 for [...]

Tagged as: alcohols, alkenes, alkynes, carboxylic acids, esters, ethers, functional groups, Summary Sheets

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Summary Sheet #8: The Oxidation Ladder

August 15, 2011

Following up on this post, here’s an attempt at trying to put many of the reactions in organic chemistry in perspective, from the standpoint of oxidation state. Note that there’s a lot of gaps – very little on amines, for instance, and no treatment of epoxides or diols – but I hope that people will [...]

Tagged as: oxidation, oxidizing agents, reducing agents, reduction, Summary Sheets

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The Organic Chemistry Reagent Guide is here!

May 26, 2011

It’s taken a long time – late April through early May was hectic – but today I’m thrilled to finally announce the launch of the “Organic Chemistry Reagent Guide“, a guide designed especially for undergraduate students taking Org1/Org 2. It’s has pretty much all the reagents you need to know about, from Ag2O to Zn(Hg). [...]

Tagged as: acids, bases, oxidants, reagent friday, Reagent guide, reagents, study tips, Summary Sheets

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Summary Sheet #7 – 21 Carbonyl Mechanisms on 1 page

April 20, 2011

If you feel sometimes like mechanisms in carbonyl chemistry keep repeating themselves, you aren’t just imagining things. The fact is that there IS a lot of repetition. This has been covered before – the PAPED mechanism is at the core of a lot of important carbonyl reactions, but this time I’ve put a whole bunch [...]

Tagged as: aldol, carboxylic acids, cheat sheets, claisen, esters, fischer, mechanisms, Summary Sheets

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Summary Sheet – Alkane Nomenclature

October 30, 2010

Part of the problem with nomenclature is that the trivial names can cause a lot of confusion. By themselves, the IUPAC names are at least logical, if sometimes unwieldy – it might be a good plan to just stick to one system as much as possible. I thought it would be worthwhile to put all [...]

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Summary Sheet #5 – 9 Key Mechanisms in Carbonyl Chemistry

July 29, 2010

I finally got around to putting together a summary sheet of the two previous series on mechanisms in carbonyl chemistry (anionic nucleophiles and neutral nucleophiles) It’s a companion piece to the summary sheet of the key reactions in carbonyl chemistry (otherwise known as the Big Freaking Grid). The key point is that you can boil [...]

Tagged as: acyl, addition, carbonyl chemistry, carbonyls, elimination, ketones, mechanisms, reactions, Summary Sheets

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Summary Sheet: Reactions of Alkenes

June 30, 2010

This summary sheet covers a huge number of the reactions of alkenes, as a downloadable PDF file.

Tagged as: alkenes, org 1, reactions, Summary Sheets

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Summary Sheet – Introduction to Reactivity and Nomenclature

May 12, 2010

One of my students is taking an introductory organic chemistry course at a community college. While preparing for our next session, which is going to cover some of the basics of chemical reactivity, I found myself making a little summary sheet. It’s not nearly as comprehensive as some of the ones I’ve made on carbonyl [...]

Tagged as: bonding, functional groups, introductory, nomenclature, org 1, reactions, Summary Sheets

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Summary Sheet #3: Reactions of Carbonyls – The Big Picture

April 23, 2010

The reason why I harp on organic chemistry as boiling down to “nucleophile attacks electrophile” is because it’s a greatly simplifying way to look at chemical reactions. After you’ve done organic synthesis for awhile, you start looking at functional groups like they were really complicated pieces of Lego: while their shape, size, and colour may be [...]

Tagged as: aldol, amines, carbonyls, claisen, enamines, enolates, studying, Summary Sheets, williamson

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