Learning of Organic Reactions

In learning organic reactions, it is important to know that there are 5 main types of reactions; substitution, elimination, addition, reduction and oxidation reactions. You can read more about how to classify these reactions in this post.

In this entry, I would like to suggest another interesting way to learn and understand the organic chemistry reactions. This method requires us to identify the bond that is broken. Hence, I have drawn a flow chart that allow us to determine the reaction that may have taken place.

I appreciate learning my organic chemistry reactions by grouping the bonds that are broken in the reaction. This initial step allows me to narrow down the type of reaction that can occur.   Hence, I will start by deciding whether the bonds broken is polar or non-polar.  This grouping facilitates the prediction of what sort of reaction that can happen.  For example, I will know that a polar bond be broken in an electrophilic substitution reaction. Although, oxidation reactions can be a little confusing as it affects both the polar and non-polar bonds.

You may wish to adopt this method to learn your reactions; classifying/grouping them makes it easier to remember the reactions, rather than remember all the equations without processing them further.  Hence, I would highly encourage you that in the whole course of organic chemistry, think of suitable ways that help you to find what is the best pattern that allows you to remember the list of reactions.

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Article written by Kwok YL 2010.}

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