Electron Flow in Organic Chemistry

Rating:
Summary: indispensable tool for organic chemistry students-all levels
Review: A superb, well-organized classification of organic chemistry for practitioners at all levels. Clear, concise, with a large number of charts and graphs, some of which are indispensable. A handbook which boils down most of what you need to know to understand a wide spectrum of organic reaction mechanisms. Reminds me of the Washington University medical manual series, which filtered all the medical knowledge of each subspecialty essential for daily use into a single pocket handbook.

Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Organic Text and Reference
Review: Dr. Paul Scudder was my undergraduate organic chemistry teacher at New College of USF in Sarasota, FL. His book continues to sit on my shelf even now, as I am working on my Ph.D. in synthetic medicinal chemistry. We used it along with Dr. Seyhan Ege's undergraduate Organic Chemistry text, which is a traditional "white-pages" type of organic text. His class was the best class I took in my entire four years of college, and I cannot recommend his book highly enough to anyone who truly wishes to gain a fundamental understanding of organic chemistry principles. It was a tremendous help to me both in college, as well as in grad school while preparing for my qualifiers. The book is written at a level that is accessible to college underclassmen, but it is also useful for upper level undergraduate and graduate students who would like to review important organic chemistry concepts or see the concepts presented in a new, easy to assimilate, way. His 3-D reaction coordinate graphs, pathway decision cubes, and pathway classification schemes are some of the strongest points of the book. He also presents some advanced theories such as HOMO-LUMO and HSAB theories that are often not really taught to undergraduates, and these are extremely well-done and easy to follow. Dr. Scudder has great passion for his subject, and that is apparent in his book.

The few minor and petty problems with the book that I can think of are that he assumes that the reader has some previous organic background knowledge, the writing is sometimes choppy and jumps around, and the graphics are not state-of-the-art, as he did them himself. Chapter 2, on thermodynamics and kinetics, is especially difficult to follow for someone who has no knowledge about these subjects.

Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Organic Text and Reference
Review: Dr. Paul Scudder was my undergraduate organic chemistry teacher at New College of USF in Sarasota, FL. His book continues to sit on my shelf even now, as I am working on my Ph.D. in synthetic medicinal chemistry. We used it along with Dr. Seyhan Ege's undergraduate Organic Chemistry text, which is a traditional "white-pages" type of organic text. His class was the best class I took in my entire four years of college, and I cannot recommend his book highly enough to anyone who truly wishes to gain a fundamental understanding of organic chemistry principles. It was a tremendous help to me both in college, as well as in grad school while preparing for my qualifiers. The book is written at a level that is accessible to college underclassmen, but it is also useful for upper level undergraduate and graduate students who would like to review important organic chemistry concepts or see the concepts presented in a new, easy to assimilate, way. His 3-D reaction coordinate graphs, pathway decision cubes, and pathway classification schemes are some of the strongest points of the book. He also presents some advanced theories such as HOMO-LUMO and HSAB theories that are often not really taught to undergraduates, and these are extremely well-done and easy to follow. Dr. Scudder has great passion for his subject, and that is apparent in his book.

The few minor and petty problems with the book that I can think of are that he assumes that the reader has some previous organic background knowledge, the writing is sometimes choppy and jumps around, and the graphics are not state-of-the-art, as he did them himself. Chapter 2, on thermodynamics and kinetics, is especially difficult to follow for someone who has no knowledge about these subjects.

Rating:
Summary: A revolutionary way of approaching organic chemistry
Review: Paul Scudder approaches organic chemistry from a completely different angle. While most organic books stress that a student memorize hundreds of seemingly unrelated reactions, this text is different. It teaches you the tools to classify organic reactions and solve them logically. This book and its method should be the standard for how organic chemistry is taught.