Drawing Lewis Structures from Lewis Symbols: A Direct Electron-Pairing Approach

Wan-Yaacob Ahmad and Mat B. Zakaria
School of Chemical Sciences and Food Technology, Program of Chemical Scienes, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Malaysia

We describe a different, more student-friendly approach to writing Lewis structures for covalent molecules and ions based on Lewis theory and Abegg's rule. Several rules for selecting central atoms are provided. Separate sets of rules are provided for diatomic molecules and ions and for polyatomic molecules and ions. For polyatomic species, we distinguish between cases where surrounding atoms are monovalent and cases where there is at least one polyvalent ligand atom. Examples are given to illustrate these rules.

Citation: Ahmad, Wan-Yaacob; Zakaria, Mat B. Drawing Lewis Structures from Lewis Symbols: A Direct Electron-Pairing Approach J. Chem. Educ. 2000 77 329.

Keywords: Inorganic Chemistry; Molecular Properties / Structure; Teaching / Learning Aids

March 2000
Vol. 77 No. 3
p. 329