Organic Chemistry

The Fourth Edition introduces new co-author Brent L. Iverson, a distinguished teacher and respected research chemist from the University of Texas, Austin. His rapport with students and his active laboratory research has increased the user-friendliness and chemical accuracy of the text.

Organic ChemistryNow (http://now.brookscole.com/bfi4), the Web-based assessment-centered learning tool for the Organic Chemistry course, was developed by William Vining, University of Massachusettes, in concert with the text. Throughout each chapter, icons with captions alert students to media resources that enhance problem-solving skills and improve conceptual understanding. In Organic ChemistryNow, students are provided with a Personalized Learning Plan?based on a diagnostic Pre-Test?that targets their study needs and helps them to visualize, organize, practice, and master the material in the text. PIN code access to Organic ChemistryNow is packaged FREE with every new copy of the text.

One of the most distinctive features of this text is its visual impact. The text's extensive full-color art program includes over 250 pieces of art by professional artists John and Bette Woolsey. Color is used to highlight parts of molecules and to follow the course of reactions.

Photos, conceived and developed for this text, show organic chemistry as it occurs in the laboratory and in everyday life, and depict the natural sources of many organic compounds.

Bio-organic chemistry is emphasized throughout the text, in the Connections to Biological Chemistry Boxes, and in end-of-chapter problems.

Chemical Connections boxes illustrate applications of organic chemistry to everyday settings. Topics range from Radical Autoxidation to Drugs that Lower Plasma Levels of Cholesterol.

There are an abundance of in-chapter examples, each with detailed solution. Following each in-chapter example is a comparable in-chapter problem designed to give students the opportunity to solve a related problem.

"End-of-Chapter Summaries" highlight all-important new terms found in a chapter. In addition, each reaction is annotated and keyed to the section where it is discussed. The "Summaries of Key Reactions" make it easy for students to see similarities and differences among reactions.

There are plentiful end-of-chapter problems. The majority of problems are categorized by topic. A problem number set in red indicates an applied problem. New to this edition, particularly in the later functional group chapters are numerous problems dealing with the synthesis of important pharmaceuticals.

Throughout the book, definitions for new terms are placed in the margin. In addition, all definitions are collected in a glossary at the end of the text. Each glossary listing is keyed to the Section of the text where the term is introduced.

All mechanisms have been carefully examined for inclusion of all steps with arrow pushing, proper reagents, and conditions.

To facilitate student success in the course, "How To" boxes? highlighting the most important survival skills necessary to learn and master organic chemistry? are integrated throughout the text at key points. These "essential skills" include "How To: Draw Curved Arrows and Push Electrons," "How To: Draw Chiral Molecules," "How To: Solve NMR Spectral Problems," and more. These "How To" boxes are extended online as directed tutorials at the Organic ChemistryNow Web site.

To engage the biology major and pre-medical student, new "Connections to Biological Chemistry" boxes discuss the applications of organic chemistry to biology, such as "The Importance of cis Double Bonds in Fats vs. Oils." In addition, the text features MCAT preparation problems as well as problems applied to medicinal chemistry and the pharmaceutical sciences.
A new Chapter 24, "Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation and Synthesis" brings together the synthesis of novel compounds and a series of challenging problems based on actual total syntheses that use the chemistry from this and earlier chapters. This capstone chapter provides an excellent review of much of the chemistry introduced throughout the book.

A new "Summary of Stereochemistry Terms" appears after Chapter 6, "Reactions of Alkenes," and defines and illustrates important terms such as chirality, enantiomerism, diastereoisomerism, stereoselectivity, stereospecificity, and topicity.

Alkyne chemistry was moved from Chapter 10 in the previous edition to Chapter 7 to follow alkene chemistry, which has similarities and stresses the similarities as well as the difference between the chemistry of these two functional groups.

Conjugated Systems was moved from Chapter 23 in the previous edition to Chapter 20 as an extension from enolate anions and enamines (Chapter 19).

New electrostatic potential maps were added to give students a greater appreciation for the charge distribution in molecules.