Electron redistribution is the cornerstone of our understanding of chemical reactivity. For the vast majority of organic reactions electrons are assumed to move in pairs providing explanatory mechanisms through the generation of intermediate structures. But for many transformations these discrete steps are idealized constructs, involving intermediates assumed but not empirically justified. This unitary perspective predicated on the curved arrow formalism has resulted in the scenario where for many organic transformations our supposed understanding far surpasses our growing knowledge. Reformulating organic mechanisms to include single electron transfer (SET) as a component of, or an alternative to, the prevailing iconic descriptions can provide for a more empirically adequate mechanistic description. In addition using the language of SET presents an opportunity to unify mechanistic concepts under a common donor/acceptor framework.

中文翻译：

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有机化学为代表

电子重新分布是我们理解化学反应性的基石。对于绝大多数有机反应，假设电子成对移动，通过生成中间结构提供解释机制。但是对于许多转换来说，这些离散的步骤是理想化的结构，涉及假设但没有经验证明的中间体。这种基于弯曲箭头形式主义的单一视角导致了这样一种场景：对于许多有机转换，我们假设的理解远远超过了我们不断增长的知识。重新制定有机机制，将单电子转移 (SET) 作为流行的标志性描述的一个组成部分或替代方案，可以提供更符合经验的充分机制描述。