Formal Charge of Oxygen

[Noh_Jasmine_1J]

why does oxygen usually have the negative formal charge in a lewis structure compared to carbon?

[madisondesilva1c]

I had this question as well and from other students I have heard that the oxygen is more electronegative therefore it prefers to have the negative charge compared to Nitrogen if one of them has to have it.

[Mayaal_Khan_4H]

The formal charge depends on the arrangement of electrons around the element. Maybe Oxygen was arranged in a way in which there were more lone pairs than shared pairs which caused it to have a negative formal charge.

[705192887]

In general, the more electronegative atom should have the negative formal charge since the electrons are more strongly attracted/pulled to them.

[kamalkolluri]

As the others said, the electronegativity of Carbon is lower than Oxygen, which causes oxygen to "hog" the electrons more, giving it a negative formal charge.

[Ricardo Martin 1J]

Oxygen is more electronegative than carbon which attracts the electrons to them usually giving it a negative charge.

[Rehan Chinoy 1K]

Also keep in mind that formal charge only applies to compounds and not individual atoms.