Organic Chemistry, 9th Edition

Book Preface

I love writing, and I love explaining organic chemistry. This book is now in its ninth edition, but I’m still going over every word and every explanation, updating a thousand small details and trying to improve everything. My aim is always to refine the features that made earlier editions so successful, while adding new ones.

Changes and Additions for This Ninth Edition

Text content has been updated for greater accuracy as a response to user feedback. Discussions of NMR spectroscopy and opportunities to practice mechanism problems have been expanded substantially for this ninth edition.

Changes include:

• Discussions of interpreting mass spectra have been expanded with new spectroscopy problems included throughout the book.

• Discussions of the theory of nuclear magnetic resonance and interpretation of NMR data have been reorganized and expanded with new NMR problems.

• Why This Chapter now precedes the introduction in each chapter, immediately setting the context for what to expect.

• Mechanism problems at the ends of chapters are now grouped together so that they are easily located.

• Many new problems at the ends of chapters have been added, including 108 new mechanism-drawing practice problems and new spectroscopy and NMR problems.

• Deeper Look features have been changed to Something Extra, with updated coverage on each topic.

• Seven new Practice Your Scientific Analysis and Reasoning essays and corresponding questions modeled on professional tests such as the MCAT. Topics focus on the latest developments in the medical, pharmaceutical, or biological application of organic chemistry. Topics include: The Chiral Drug Thalidomide, From Mustard Gas to Alkylating Anticancer Drugs, Photodynamic Therapy (PDT), Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), Thymine in DNA, Melatonin and Serotonin, and The Potent Antibiotic Traits of Endiandric Acid C.