[strigoi]

Hey,

We are instructed to prepare a 5 page essay on the topic of choice. I have chosen "Nickel catalyzed carbon-carbon couplings".

Im kinda overwhelmed about the scope of this topic tho. I think the topic suggests that all couplings should be reviewed, but 99 % of literature i find is about cross-coupling. Obviously, there is homo-coupling involved with nickel aswell, but it seems like its redundant or maybe even unwanted (as mostly you want 2 different carbon groups added together).

How do i reference something like this as it is not mentioned (as far as i can find) and how/should i jump straight into the reactions and modes for cross-couplings?

[kriggy]

You probably could make your essay more focused. Your topic is broad and likely you could teach a graduate level course on that. I once had a similar assignment like this, it was about chan-lam coupling. What I did was to
a) start with the original papers by chan, evans and lam to introduce the topic, mention the sligtly different conditions they use and substrate scope and previous work done with organo-Pb chemistry
b) continue with recent examples, in this case it was the  first use of boronic acid esters in this transformation
c) show some examples from literature, because in my case I  was having a talk in front of the prof and his group, I focused on examples that oculd be usefull for them (heterocycles and solid phase chemistry)