Over several decades of teaching General Chemistry I have utilized various methods to get students to draw appropriate Lewis Dot Structures. About 10 years ago I learned about a process which I call the "Account Ledger Method". In this method all valence electrons are assumed to initially belong to the molecule (and placed in a ledger) and not to specific individual atoms. As the molecule is put together those electrons are distributed systematically and removed from the ledger. Later the electronic need of the individual atoms and the number of electrons remaining in the ledger may not match up. In those cases multiple bonds are invoked. The process continues until the electronic needs of the molecule matches the number of electrons in the ledger.

 I have found this method gets students away from the “shuffling” of electrons between atoms as they draw Lewis Dot Structures and avoids the invocation of dative bonds. The basic process is given in the first slide and an example of its use is given in the remaining slides.