The top 7 organic chemistry sites for 2020

1) Japanese Spectral Database: On this site, you can type in almost any organic molecule (by mass, formula, or name) and will be able to view many of it spectra, including 1H NMR, 13C NMR, IR and mass spec.  Great resource, especially for the lab portion of the course.

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2) Mechanism Movies: This site has numerous animations of organic chemistry mechanisms, which is good because we think it is helpful to actually visualize where and how the molecules themselves move.  It is also nice to see transition states of reactions and get a feel for the size of the participating atoms and reactions sites.

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3) Chemical Forums:  Got a question that you want to run by a few friends that you haven’t met yet?  This is the site.  Great (and pretty active) posting community where they will help you through a difficult problem or topic.  One word of caution–read the TOS before you go on.  The biggest thing is that they want you to have tried to figure it out a little yourself before posting on it.

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4) Organic Chemistry Test Bank: Shameless self-promotion alert!  We really do have the most comprehensive test bank on the internet.  It is all free (of course) and sorted by semester and difficulty of exam.  Most of the exams have answers too, which makes it a great place to sharpen your test taking skills.

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5) The periodic table explained:  Ok, most of us don’t like to admit that there are elements out there other than C, H, N, O and the halogens….but they do exist.  What happens when you find yourself outside of the universe of atoms we are comfortable operating with?  Go look them up on this periodic table.  Click on any of the atoms and a pop-up will tell you all about it.  Really nice for those moments when you have wondered into the realm of inorganic chemistry.

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6) Organic chemistry name reactions: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”…true enough.  And yet if you don’t know what that name is, you might be totally in the dark.  That is where this site is helpful.  Should your professor toss out the name of an organic reaction, you can check this site to see what the heck that reaction is and what the mechanism is.  Big help.

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7) Molecule of the day blog: Two downsides here are that this is a little advanced and it has not been updated since 2011.  Two upsides are that it is kinda cool to look at some advanced stuff and figure out how the organic chemistry you know would work on this molecule AND (let’s be honest) undergraduate organic chemistry has not changed that much since 2011 so I think you’ll be fine.  Nice to look at some advanced chemistry to see how your knowledge can be used to understand something that has real life applicability.

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So there you have it.  I wouldn’t go to these sites everyday, but it is a good way to take a peed at some really helpful stuff and see chemistry from a viewpoint other than your professor’s…..and they’re all FREE!!