Easy Way To Determine Aromaticity: Aromatic, Antiaromatic, Nonaromatic 

I am so glad this helped make it easier! Thank You for watching!

I am glad this helped!

Thank You!

I’m glad it cleared aromaticity up for you!

Hi... thank you for watching! A +charge on a carbon indicates that it lost its 4th valence electron and therefore now only has 3 bonds (bond to H not shown) using its 3 remaining valence electrons, and no other electrons, so think of the +charged carbon as "void" of pi electrons (so, no electrons to count there), remembering that pi electrons are either lone pairs or the 2 electrons in a double bond. But we do consider the +charge when determining conjugation, because pi electrons can jump to the +charged carbon since there is a "void" of electrons, like there is a "vacancy" for pi electrons to jump into. It also helps to think about a carbon with a -charge; a negatively charged carbon has its 4th valence electron and gains a fifth electron that pairs up with the 4th to make a lone pair [plus the 3 bonds as mentioned above]; that's why we count the -charges as pi electrons (lone pairs). I hope this helps further understand aromaticity and why +charges are included but not counted as pi electrons.

Good question... btw... it's a common question among my students, and hopefully this helps others better understand aromaticity!

Hello, does the "including in counting as double bonds, but not in counting as pi electrons" apply to both positive and negative charges?

I will work on a trick for that. Thank You for watching!

I am glad this helped! Thank You for watching!

I am glad this was helpful!

lol... thank you so much... glad this helped!

Thank You for the feedback! I will make sure to crank it up a bit on all future videos. I was always afraid I was making it too loud; I appreciate the constructive feedback!

True... cyclooctatetraene predominantly exists as tub-shape due to its irregular bond lengths, however, I intended to show its planar transition state between its tub-shapes which is antiaromatic. I showed its antiaromatic state because that's how they usually show it on DAT or MCAT. If they were to show the 3D tub-shape, then indeed it would be nonaromatic. Thank You for watching!