A Handbook of Organic Chemistry Mechanisms

Book excerpt: A Handbook to Organic Chemistry Mechanisms is designed to accompany a standard organic chemistry textbook. The book presents complete mechanisms, start to finish, without any steps skipped or left out. The mechanisms have been carefully written to show each step in a logical and easy to follow format. Students have enthusiastically attested to the ease with which they could understand the mechanisms. Reaction mechanisms are one of the most challenging aspects of organic chemistry. This book is derived from Part D of A Guide to Organic Chemistry Mechanisms. That book is a guided inquiry workbook that shows students how to study and enables them to learn reaction mechanisms. Student knowledge is increased step by step by completing mechanisms at easy, moderate, and textbook levels of difficulty. A Handbook to Organic Chemistry Mechanisms also relies on example-based teaching. Chemical reactions can be learned in context, the way infants learn. Learning reactions from rules is difficult when there are many exceptions. Substitution and elimination reactions are noteworthy due to the number of conditions that must be accounted for. With example-based teaching, you can deduce the importance that stereochemistry, structure, solvent, leaving group, charge, basicity, or nucleophilicity may have on a reaction. A Handbook to Organic Chemistry Mechanisms has been designed with the principle that our brains are pattern-matching machines. Therefore, an emphasis has been placed upon the patterns of reactions. Each chapter represents a basic mechanistic theme. That theme is repeated with the examples. Insightful explanations have been included with the mechanisms. This book will be a valuable resource for reviewing for an exam, solving problems, or studying for the MCAT.