Michael Mombourquette
Chemistry Lecture Notes
These are my personal Course notes. I use them in class and have
made them available to you as an additional resource. These notes are
meant to supplement the lecture content. You may approach the use of
these notes in several ways:
1) You might consider reading the notes thoroughly before entering class.
Hopefully, you will understand much of what is in them and you can use the
class time to fill in the knowledge gaps. In class, I will be
discussing and expanding on these notes both visually and verbally.
You will have the opportunity there to ask questions to help clarify any
points about which you are not clear. Many students use this mode, and
even bring to class the printed notes to make
their own annotations in the margins, etc. during the lectures.
2. You might ignore them until after the lecture and then use them to
supplement your own course notes and fill in any details that you were
unable to copy down in the lecture itself. If you choose
this use, you can take your own notes with the confidence that if you miss
something it will be in the notes.
3. Some have even used the notes as a replacement for the text itself.
This latter mode, I would not recommend since my notes are not necessarily
as detailed in some aspects as the text book and may not be enough to fully
explain certain points (although I certainly do try to make them as complete
as possible, within reason) Also, having a different point of view
(the notes, versus the text) can often be quite useful in helping to
understand difficult concepts.
Hopefully, these notes will make it possible for you to pay more
attention to the lecture itself, rather than frantically trying to copy down
everything that happens with no time left to try to understand what is going
on.
Once the class is completed, I strongly suggest you then make your own
notes, taking details from my web notes and from the lecture material,
supplementing with text book content and your own understanding. Keep
a table of contents and a glossary of terms as you do this throughout the
year. It will help you to understand, organize and remember the course
material.
No matter how you choose to use these notes, you should not fool yourself
into believing that they will make a good replacement for in-class time.
Generally, it takes much longer to learn something if your only source of
input is the written word. Hearing and seeing lectures live and
interactive can save you many hours later, trying to understand the
material. Also, I make announcements, and give details about other
aspects of the course from time to time that are not here in these notes.
I hope you find these note to be helpful and instructive. Please feel
free to make any suggestions or corrections as you find them.
Send any such comments to
michaelm@chem.queensu.ca or phone 613-533-2612 or visit my office in
Chernoff Hall, room 209.
To best view these notes, please set your browser
to allow JavaScript and Java applets. Any of the
current top browsers (IE, Netscape, Mozilla, etc) should work fine with these
notes although some may look slightly better than others in a few places.
Sincerely,
Michael Mombourquette
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