Textbook in PDF format

In the fourth edition of this book, we continue to have the same goal as in the previous editions: to provide students of organic chemistry an essentially self-contained laboratory textbook that requires little or no supplementation, in the form of reference to lecture textbooks, for a complete understanding of the experiments. The experiments have been selected to illustrate many of the highlights of the subjects covered in contemporary organic lecture courses. Each of the experiments is preceded by a thorough discussion of the theoretical as well as the practical aspects of the experiment. Every experiment and every section of the third edition of the book have been subjected to critical examination by the authors, with consideration of our experience with our own students and of the information provided to us by many of the instructors in the more than 200 other universities and colleges in which the previous editions have been used. As a result, this fourth edition may be briefly characterized as follows: (1) all experiments that have proved satisfactory and valuable to thousands of students using the previous editions have been retained; (2) experiments that have been found not to have wide use have been removed; (3) all discussions and experiments in the text have been updated; (4) new discussions and experiments have been added; (5) safety in the laboratory has continued to receive strong emphasis, both in the form of expanded cautions of the "Do It Safely" type and by exclusion of dangerous chemicals from the experiments; and (6) the book has been reorganized exten sively to make it more convenient for both instructors and students to use. Highlights of the major changes are given in the following paragraphs