Master List of Resources for Chemistry Students and Chemists

Best tool for chemistry homework: The Pocket Chemist

The Pocket Chemist is designed specifically for chemistry students and chemists to draw reactions more quickly and neatly, along with providing reference physical constants and equations to help with calculations. It's meant to help you focus on the most difficult parts of chemistry, not how to draw good polygons or which textbook cover has the right physical constant you need.

It's made from laser-cut, laser-engraved enamel-coated stainless steel to stand up to years of use. Since it's the size of a credit card, it's easier to carry and use in a notebook than the larger flimsy plastic stencils. 

If you haven't already grabbed The Pocket Chemist from our store, it's available for $12.50 with free shipping in the USA! 

If you've already purchased The Pocket Chemist:

Make sure to flip through this page on How to use The Pocket Chemist.

Also see our guide on using The Pocket Chemist to draw chair conformations, one of the trickiest parts about learning organic chemistry. 

Our favorite websites to help you learn chemistry:

Study Guides:

OrganicChemistryTutor.com - Our favorite resource for organic chemistry study guides and cheat sheets. Victor's colorful hand-written style makes learning enjoyable and forces the guides to be concise instead of dumping copy & pasted information into each one. 

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The site also includes a blog explaining the more difficult concepts in the style of a conversational illustrated guide. 

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ChemTalk tutorials and infographics - This nonprofit was launched in 2021 and already has a huge library of image- and infographic-oriented material that's easy to study and save for later. Start with their GenChem tutorials page and then move to the Organic Chemistry tutorials page. Their infographics are also quite well done and make for a great little poster to print for your desk or office. 

AnkiWeb Organic Chemistry Flash Cards - For those who learn well with flash cards, this is the best resource out there. We recommend the functional group starter desk.

ChemHelper's glossary of chemistry terms - An incredibly valuable reference page. The site is a little outdated but excels at being concise and direct. Also includes some practice questions and self-directed learning materials. 

Self-directed learning

MIT Open Courseware Chemistry Classes - The gold standard of self-directed learning. MIT publishes full course materials for every chemistry class at every level. OChem 1 includes full homework sets and practice exams. Fully downloadable for working without WiFi!

Khan Academy - A massive video course-based website to learn all types of things. This link will take you to their organic chemistry section. 

Michigan State's Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry - A fully online free textbook for organic chemistry! It's a very concise refresher to dig into any topic. The UI is a little outdated but each section is hyperlinked to jump straight to it!

UC Boulder's organic chemistry lab best practices help library - A perfectly summarized and straightforward guide to common chemistry lab techniques to help keep you from losing random points for doing things incorrectly. Also includes practice exams and organic chemistry lab practice questions.

Organic Chem Explained - A blog website by chemist Mark Coster with small detailed posts and organized by sections so you can quickly find help on whatever you're struggling with. Also has practice problems and offers online tutoring sessions.

Master Organic Chemistry - A well-organized website with small modules for every topic. Also has cheat sheets available for purchase that are dense but organized. Modern and easy UI that makes browsing much more enjoyable!

Useful Digital Tools for Chemists:

A 100,000+ word chemistry dictionary that can be installed to MS Word to prevent it from automatically adding red squiggle underlines to technical words that are spelled correctly. 

An automatic chemical formula formatter plugin for MS Word that will save you tons of time. No more tedious subscript-superscript editing!

Practice exam questions:

University of Wisconsin's organic chemistry practice questions - a huge library of straightforward quick-hitting practice questions organized by molecule type. Make sure to use the "hide answers" button at the bottom to start. Also includes biochemistry, inorganic and analytical.

Michigan State University Chemistry Department Practice Questions - A straightforward list of common questions organized by subject and usefulness. 

Arizona State University OChem 1 practice exams - Two years' of practice exams separated into thirds of the semester with answer sheets included!

Purdue's archive of old exams for chemistry doctoral students - A rich library of difficult questions from all aspects of chemistry side-by-side with a written answer key. Not for undergrads.

Harvard Organic Chemistry practice exams and lecture notes - A full online organic chemistry course to supplement your current class. Complete with exam answer keys, lecture handouts and homework questions.

Online Communities:

Reddit: r/chemhelp: - An active community of professional and student chemists helping each other with difficult chemistry problems. Make sure to read the rules before posting your problems!

Reddit: r/OrganicChemistry - A smaller but active community focusing on organic chemistry problems. Come here to learn and help each other through the process!

Reddit: r/chemistryhomework - A small and less-active sub-Reddit but still can be helpful if you're in a pinch. 

The best Chemistry blogs of 2022:

ChemistryHall.com re-launched in 2019 and is releasing new weekly blog posts ranging from interesting chemistry news, breakthrough research highlights and lists of the best chemistry textbooks for learning at every level. 

CompoundChem.com specializes in intricate chemistry-based infographics that explain relevant statistics and studies that are of interest to the general public. 

A Chat and Waffles Chemistry Blog has some incredibly interesting and amusing posts dating back many years. It's a great place to get lost in the goings-on of chemistry outside of your classroom. 

Know a chemist who needs a gift? (It can be you, we won't judge.) Find something they'll love in our collection of Gifts for Chemists and Chemistry Students.