The Arrow Notation in Mechanisms

Since chemical reactions involve the breaking and making of bonds, a consideration of the movement of bonding (and non-bonding) valence shell electrons is essential to this understanding. It is now common practice to show the movement of electrons with curved arrows, and a sequence of equations depicting the consequences of such electron shifts is termed a mechanism. In general, two kinds of curved arrows are used in drawing mechanisms:

A full head on the arrow indicates the movement or shift of an electron pair:
A partial head (fishhook) on the arrow indicates the shift of a single electron:

The use of these symbols in bond-breaking and bond-making reactions is illustrated below. If a covalent single bond is broken so that one electron of the shared pair remains with each fragment, as in the first example, this bond-breaking is called homolysis. If the bond breaks with both electrons of the shared pair remaining with one fragment, as in the second and third examples, this is called heterolysis.

Bond-Breaking		Bond-Making

Other Arrow Symbols

Chemists also use arrow symbols for other purposes, and it is essential to use them correctly.

The Reaction Arrow	The Equilibrium Arrow	The Resonance Arrow

The following equations illustrate the proper use of these symbols: