Just a bit about the book. It is a workbook to accompany a text. It makes problems understandable. The premise is  that you can only solve a new problem if you already know the solution to at least one problem like it. That is the key to learning organic chemistry. A conversation I had with my wife last night. TLOC is written parallel to how French was taught at the University of Minnesota when I was there. The entire class was taught in French. The class was taught from a dialog that you needed to study, so in class, you would know what was being said. The objective was to establish a pattern, but it was clear as to  what the pattern was. There was not doubt. From there, they varied the use of those words, mixing them into questions etc. 

 

In my book, I have mechanism written in a very clear way. You don't need to check with your text. However, I have left out the curved arrows. However since the products of each step are present, it raises a simple question, "How must the electrons move to make the bonds present in the product?" The objective here is to teach you the meaning of the curved arrows. What is currently controversial, I have written 'pre-bonds' which show you the atom to atom connections that are about to occur. However, they are effective teaching tools. In fact, I would advise in learning reactions, that  you would use them extensively. I also used the expression, "I'm going to form a bond between this atom and that atom" in class to refer to the dashed line I drew (the 'pre-bond'). The pre-bond is an effective means to connect that meaning to the mechanisms. 

 

Now that  we have the controversy out of the way, from that point on, the problems become more difficult by removal of every other intermediate, but it is still the same problem. If you could do the prior problem, you should still be able to do the problem if some of the intermediates are removed. Finally, I write the problems in the format customary to textbooks. However, I do leave the same number of reaction arrows. I now write reagents in their complete forms and I add reaction solvents. Because students are often confused when they see them, I have added the additional notation by putting solvents in italics to make it clear it is a solvent. 

 

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