Describe the octet rule in the Lewis model.

Solution 5E Step 1 of 3 In the periodic table of elements, only noble gases can be considered “stable” because they have a complete electronic configuration, even in the inner Energy shells and in the outer one (called Valence Shell). The other elements, since they don’t have a complete electronic configuration in their Valence shell, must bond together in order to resemble the noble gases; on doing that, elements can share their electrons (as it happens in covalent bond) or they can tranfer electrons one to another (as it happens in ionic bond) When two elements bond together, the outer shell must contain eight electrons to be considered “complete”. This is the octet rule proposed by Lewis. In Lewis’ structures, we need to represent only the electrons of the valence shell. Every electron can be represented as a dot. Thus we need to know the electronic configuration of every element.