Customer Reviews

Organic Chemistry (with InfoTrac Printed Access Card)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I used this text for 2 semesters of Organic Chemistry. I thought it was fantastic, with very colorful, helpful electrostatic potential maps. It showed clear reaction mechanisms and gave a summary of all learned reactions at the end of the chapter.

If you need to learn Organic chem, McMurry is the way to go.

EDIT

It's now 2006 and I wrote that review in 2004. McMurry is an excellent guide to sophomore organic chemistry, and it leads well into more complicated texts, such as Dougherty's Physical Organic, March's Advanced Organic, or the dual Carey Advanced Organic tests. When I started grad school, I had to take the ACS Diagnostic test in organic chemistry and I aced it, largely from the material that I learned from this book.

McMurry's text is a very friendly, gentle intro to organic. It's a thoroughly enjoyable read, but it doesn't teach you what you need to know. Explanations for important mechanisms are usually very brief, and the problems included are usually very basic and general (the spectroscopy and synthesis problems, in particular). If you're looking to become a chemist, this is not the book to learn from. I'd recommend Vollhardt and Schore's textbook, or any number of sophomore-level texts that will give you the skills you need to approach complicated problems more successfully (i.e., on exams or out in the industry).

McMurry's Organic Chemistry is a great textbook. The text is clear and uncluttered, especially compared to others. The graphics organize the information well. Also, the back of the solutions manual has an organized summary of the reactions.

If you are using it as a supplement to your assigned book, I find that the previous (5th?) is just fine, and is probably much cheaper than the new edition.

Mcmurry is a colourful and over-generalized textbook that presents the most fundamental concepts of organic chemistry without fully elucidating on their logic. Mcmurry's style is to induce learning of 0-chem via memorizing of reaction mechanisms, and other trivial components.

The only reason you should buy this book (same reason I did) is if your o-chem course is based on this; that being, this is your prescribed text. It is far too difficult to study organic chemistry with another textbook. However this may not be the case for this edition of Mcmurry. Organic Chemistry by Wade has the same chapter format, covers essentially the same thing but treats the fundamental principles with more depth; allowing the reader to appreciate the finer points of organic chemistry.

One thing that irritated me the most about this book was that there is no appendix for IR frequencies of major functional groups, and mass spectra is barely covered. It is at best just mentioned...nothing more. Wade treats the interpretation of spectral data with more clarity and depth...something which is essential in second year chemistry.

All in all this book doesnt even provide a good grounding in the basics. When it discuses KMnO4 oxidatation, that at least should be a review of redox.

The chapters on Substitution and elimination reactions as well as further chapters in aromatic chemistry are satisfactory, but it is the basics that are lacking. I would suggest for first time o-chem students to consult Wade and compare it to the writing style of Mcmurry. Albeit Mcmurry is very nice and colourful, you will regret its lack of depth and its over simplification of organic chemistry.

The book itself is supplemented with another spectroscopy book here in Australia, which suggests the severe lackings of this book. This has been inherent in it for the last three editions...Not too happy with it.

"...I write to explain chemistry to students the way I wish it had been explained to me years ago."

McMurry has that line in the introduction to the text, and when I read that in the 3rd edition some years ago, it was one of the things that kept me from tucking tail and changing my major.

He remains true to those words. This text is clear and unambiguous in its presentation. Rather than inundating the reader with details and overly rigorous academic explanations, as some texts do, McMurry presents organic chemistry in a straightforward, streamlined manner. The text progresses from basic physical organic chemistry and molecular orbital theory through functional groups and their reactivity, finally culminating in appropriate, but not exhaustive, chapters on biomolecules.

After having learned organic chemistry from McMurry, I personally found tackling more advanced graduate texts (e.g. Carey and Sundberg) a more tractable endeavor.

Really, I thought this was a great text. I feel like the layout really made a difference, though I can't say that had I another book I'd have learned o chem with any less success...but the background chapters really help with the overall grasp of the chemistry, and the review/carbonyl preview sections in the middle do the same so that things become predictable and simpler than with other texts I've seen. I thought all the diagrams were pretty clear along with the actual text, so I don't know what the lower ratings are about.

Good Textbook, clear and concise. However, for an advanced student who needs or wants to learn advanced explanations refer to another textbook on occasion. I use this as a reference on occasion b/c it serves my needs just fine, the SOLUTIONS/STUDY Guide manual is a must and gives very detailed explanations of the problems in the text, the manual is EXCELLENT. The strong point of this book are the practice questions which really get you thinking.

I found this book to be helpful in my organic chemistry class. It has great diagrams and explains the concepts fairly well so one can understand what is being said. The book does come with a CD, which I did not use for the class. The book also has many examples, practice problems with solutions in the back, and chapter summaries. I recommend this book for anyone who is serious about organic chemistry.

I have used this text in my Organic classes and have found it very useful and informative. The author uses clear explanations and examples for all key elements in each chapter. The mechanisms and reactions are clearly described and detailed. Also for every college student the solutions manual reveals it all. It has both odd and even solutions. The only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is because not all of the exercise problems really follow what you actually get taught in class, but they are still useful. Great text overall.
B. Bentley

This seemed like an okay book for chemistry. There were a few things that we covered in class however, that were not in this book, just a couple of reactions. I recommend the book "Pushing Electrons" as a supplement to this to help with resonance, it helped me a lot.