Brackets for Anions

[Griffin G]

I noticed that when an anion is formed in a lewis dot structure, they get a bracket around the chemical symbol with 8 electrons shown as their new octet. Are we supposed to only use brackets in lewis structures for anions or do other species get them too?

[Rose_Malki_3G]

You use brackets whenever you want to specify the charge of a certain species (which can be both an anion or a cation)

[Samudrala_Vaishnavi 3A]

The brackets are used for other species, basically any ions like cations AND anions. This is the same in covalent and ionic bonding. If you end up starting off with two ions and covalently bond them, you will have brackets around the final Lewis structure since they maintain their charge. If you transfer electrons to make new cations and anions, you put a bracket around them to specify how many electrons have been transferred or lost to form the charge and identify which is the cation and which is the anion.

[Wasila Sun 2I]

In the lecture, Dr. Lavelle mentioned that the brackets are just for clarity for the student's learning rather than being official notation, I believe.

[Aaina 2D]

You use brackets for structures that have an overall charge. Therefore, you will see them when drawing cations and anions' lewis structures.

[sophie esherick 3H]

The brackets are used for both cations AND anions. For example NH4+ is a cation so when you draw the structure, you put brackets around the entire molecule with a + on the outside to signify it has an overall +1 charge. For any molecule, polyatomic ion or the ions in an ionic bond, you will put the brackets around them to signify their overall charge.

[aashmi_agrawal_3d]

Brackets are used so that the charge of the entire molecule can be displayed right outside of the bracket. Since they are used to show the charge, they are used for both anions and cations.