Lewis Structure for Compounds

[Jacqueline Duong 1D]

Hi! I had a question on drawing the lewis structure for compounds:
How do we know when to draw them as separate lewis structures and when to draw it as one?

For example, for the lewis structure of NH4Cl, my intuition was to draw the lewis structure with N as the central atom and having 4H and Cl branching off of it, but the book drew it as two separate structures right next to each other. Whereas for HCHO, it was drawn as one structure.

Hope this question makes sense--thanks in advance!

[Jessica Phung 1E]

I was also confused on this but I think that when the compound is covalent, you draw the lewis structures connected because they are sharing electrons whereas when they are ionically bonded, you draw them separately in their aqueous state. For NH4Cl, the compound is ionic because there is a cation (NH4+) and an anion (Cl-).

[Omar Alkhalili 1J]

Hello! When there is a bond between two atoms as a connected line, it means that there is a covalent bond where the atoms share the electron(s). Some compounds are bonded ionically, so the structure would be completely different because there is no sharing between the atoms, but one is simply giving the electron to the other. NH4Cl is one of those ionic compounds I believe.

[Kaethe Zappacosta 2L]

I was also confused on this but I think that when the compound is covalent, you draw the lewis structures connected because they are sharing electrons whereas when they are ionically bonded, you draw them separately in their aqueous state. For NH4Cl, the compound is ionic because there is a cation (NH4+) and an anion (Cl-).

So would you draw the NH4+ as one structure, and the Cl- as a different structure? Would the Cl- just have one dot for an electron?

[Jessica Phung 1E]

I was also confused on this but I think that when the compound is covalent, you draw the lewis structures connected because they are sharing electrons whereas when they are ionically bonded, you draw them separately in their aqueous state. For NH4Cl, the compound is ionic because there is a cation (NH4+) and an anion (Cl-).

So would you draw the NH4+ as one structure, and the Cl- as a different structure? Would the Cl- just have one dot for an electron?

Yes, you would. Except you would draw Cl- with seven electrons and a total charge of -1.

[Morgan Micallef 1A]

as other people said, when the compound is covalent you draw lines for the bonds, but when it is ionic you draw the atoms separately with their charges indicated