An example of a skeletal formula is the skeletal representation of ethanol, which is a commonly known alcohol. The skeletal formula is a simplified way to depict the molecular structure of a compound by using lines to represent the carbon-carbon bonds and omitting most of the carbon and hydrogen atoms.
The skeletal formula of ethanol is:
CH3CH2OH
In this representation, the carbon atoms are represented by vertices and the lines between them represent the carbon-carbon bonds. The hydrogen atoms attached to carbon atoms are typically omitted, except for the hydrogen atoms attached to heteroatoms (atoms other than carbon) like oxygen (O) in this case. So, the formula CH3CH2OH represents two carbon atoms bonded together, with three hydrogen atoms attached to the first carbon atom (represented as CH3), and one hydrogen atom attached to the second carbon atom (represented as CH2OH).