Lewis Dot Order

[Yousif Jafar 1G]

Is there a particular order for Lewis dot structures?

[Moryel Yashar 1J]

No; as long as you don't have more than 2 dots on a side, it should be fine.

[LaurenJuul_1B]

No, there is not a particular order that you need to follow. As long as there are no more than two dots on each side you should be fine.

[Katelyn Phan 2A]

Like stated above, there is no particular order; however, you should consider symmetry.

[Courtney McHargue 1I]

There is no particular order that you have to put the elements of the structure in, as long as each main element has a full set of 8 electrons, other than elements like H which only need 2 electrons.

[Erica Li 1C]

Nope! just make sure that there's one dot on all 4 sides before you can start pairing them together

[Riya Shah 4H]

Do we have to make dots according to how they fill the px, py, pz orbitals? For example, if px and py each have 1 electron then do they have to be singly represented around the atom?

[Dong Hyun Lee 4E]

No there is not a specific order to how you should do your lewis dot structure but go around once to put 1 electron on each side and then keep going around depending on how many electrons you have to mark.

[Jonathan Omens 1K]

It is generally best to choose the atom with the lowest ionization energy as the central atom. Start with this atom and arrange the others symmetrically around it.

[Esther Lee 4H]

I was always under the assumption that if you imagined the atom as a box, you had to have at least one dot on each side before going around and adding more dots. so for something like oxygen with 6 valence electrons, you would put a dot on all 4 sides of the "box" instead of putting 2 dots on 3 sides and calling it a day. so you would have 2 sides with 2 dots and 2 sides with 1 dot each for a total of 6 electrons. I really hope this makes sense I confused myself trying to explain it

[kimberlyrose1G]

There is no order, although you should have one electron on each of the four sides before having two on the same side. You should also take a look at/aim for symmetry (having two on the right side, as well as the left side if the element has six valence electrons).