Comments

Cyclopentadiene

Excellent. All calculations correct.

Nice layout but section headings would be useful.

Taxol

Energies not minimised – Possibly due to just modelling one identical chair confirmations. Would have been nice to see a comparison of the different chairs and boats.

Good discussion.

NMR

1H NMR – Good – you’re quoting individual values for methyl groups – experimentally these are rotationally averaged – you need to do this in your calculations for comparison. This isn’t a problem with out-of-date NMR!

13C NMR- Good

Free energy – You mention a comparison of 17 and 18, but don’t discuss it. A conclusion for this section would be nice.

Epoxide

Crystal structure

Great. Nice figures and discussion

NMR

Good that you realised both enantiomers would give the same results.

Rotations

Good you looked at what Shi/Jacobsen report.

No discussion of VCD/ECD

TS

Great.

QTAIM and NCI

Nicely done

Suggestion

Good – but these catalysts will not work with tetra substituted alkenes.