Organic Chemistry Primer

Organic Chemistry is the study of carbon chemistry! Carbon has four valence electrons and thus always likes to make four bonds. 

The basics for naming organic molecules include: counting the number of carbons, looking at the number of bonds between carbons, and checking for functional groups. 

Prefixes are based on the number of carbons. 1=meth, 2=eth, 3=prop, 4=but, and after that the prefixes mimic the covalent prefixes. The suffix identifies the bond type. A single is an alkane and thus the suffix is -ane. Doubles - alkene; triples - alkyne. 

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Compound Interest's original post can be found here.

There are many organic functional groups, but at this level of chemistry, students just need to be familiar with alcohols, aldehydes, and carboxylic acids.