Lewis Structures Method

[Stella Nguyen 1J]

Hi everyone!

I was wondering if you guys could share some tips and methods on how to draw lewis structures. For harder molecules, I sometimes get confused about which atoms to connect and where to add a double bond or triple bond.

Thank you so much!

[Izamary Marquez 2H]

One thing that works for me is to first draw out every atom with all the electrons as dots and THEN draw the bonds so that I don't get confused :)

[Sami Siddiqui 1J]

Here are some things I consider while doing a Lewis structure:

1. Make the element with the lowest ionization energy the central atom.
2. Make other elements in the Lewis structure symmetrical about the central atom.
3. To start, assign any two neighboring atoms a single bond and assign any lone pairs accordingly.
4. If all the electrons are used AND the formal charges are as stable as they can be (aka as close to 0 as possible), then we finished making the Lewis structure.
5. If all the electrons are used but the formal charges can be made more stable by adding more bonds and removing lone pairs, then do so accordingly. The best example I can think of is SO4-2, which contains two double bonds and two single bonds. This configuration, instead of the simple four single bond configuration, allows for more elements to attain a formal charge of 0 while keeping the number of electrons the same as before.