Confusion on drawing a Lewis Dot Diagram?

Question

I have a confusion...

My teacher taught us that when we are drawing a Lewis Dot Diagram, we would start from the top then go clockwise, putting 1 dot each time for every valence. If more than 4, then we would start from the top again, adding 1 more dot beside the previous dot(s).

For example, if according to my teacher, let say:

Hydrogen (H)
the dot should go above H, right?

or

Oxygen (O)
there should be 2 dots above, 2 dots on the right, 1 dot at the bottom, and 1 on the left, right??

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However, when I searched upon the internet, there seems to be differences from mines...why?

example from site: http://www.uoregon.edu/~ch111/images/dotsstruct.gif

Please explain...this is urgent for a project

Answer 1

It doesn't actually matter if you go clockwise or counterclockwise or up and down and side to side. It doesn't change the chemistry of the atoms. Your teacher just wants you to learn a standard way of doing it so that you don't mess up. You don't *have* to do it the way your teacher says, but you'll never be wrong if you do.

Answer 2

If you are doing Lewis diagram of an ion such as the sulfide ion, S= knowing the sulfur atom has 6 electrons in outer energy level, and of course the ion will have 8 electrons having gained 2 from another atom, so the Lewis structure would be just the syboll S surrounded by four pairs of electrons. Now if you are doing Lewis diagram for say H2S, each hydrogen has one electron as you know, and the sulfur has 6 electrons in outer energy level. And you probably know that the overall charge on any molecule is zero. so just do the diagram and don't worry about formal charge, in this case it would be set up H=S=H with a lone pair above and below the sulfur atom, and the shape of the molecule would be bent at about 90 degrees .

Answer 3

The positions of dots does not matter but yes u should have correct no. of electrons shown and u cannot show more than two dots in one place i.e like top bottom , left and right ; in total u should have eight dots for each atom which will conferm that ur diagram is correct

Answer 4

The way ur teacher taught is the same as my teacher taught me but actually it does not matter. In ur class u should do according to ur teacher.