Materials Science and Engineering/List of Topics/Lewis Structures

Lewis structures, also called Lewis-dot diagrams, are diagrams that show the bonding between atoms of a molecule, and the lone pairs of electrons that may exist in the molecule. A Lewis structure can be drawn for any covalently-bonded molecule, as well as coordination compounds. The Lewis structure was named after Gilbert N. Lewis, who introduced it in his 1916 article The Atom and the Molecule. They are similar to electron dot diagrams in that the valence electrons in lone pairs are represented as dots, but they also contains lines to represent shared pairs in a chemical bond (single, double, triple, etc.).

Lewis's structures show each atom in the structure of the molecule using its chemical symbol. Lines are drawn between atoms that are bonded to one another (rarely, pairs of dots are used instead of lines). Excess electrons that form lone pairs are represented as pairs of dots, and are placed next to the atoms.

Reference

Wikipedia, "Lewis Structure"