Learning objectives

Dissect the pushing arrows formalism

For a given pair of reactants in a one-step organic reaction to be able to

  • identify the nucleophile and electrophile
     
  • identify bonds made and broken and correlate this with the number of arrows required 
     
  • identify the orientation of the arrows from the direction of electron flow
     
  • position the arrows appropriately to show electron movement
     
  • correlate changes in charge of the species involved with the movement of the electron pairs