# 2.6 Chemical bonding – a common theme

Reflecting on what you have learned about bonding so-far, have a go to the following question.

- Ionic and covalent bonding may be thought of as extreme examples of a common process – what is this process?

- The common process is the formation of an electron-pair bond; in covalent bonding the electron pair is shared between the atoms involved; in ionic bonding it resides on just one of them.

The link between ionic and covalent bonding is highlighted with reference to the concept of electronegativity, you will be looking at this in the next section.

OpenLearn - Discovering chemistry
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