[a confused chiral girl]

I am very confused about LDA , and I also don't know what is meant by "workup". I have been flipping through textbooks and found some info on LDA, but also tried to google the meaning of workup hoping to find some examples of reaction mechanisms with these reagents. However, I have no choice and no clue. If it is not too hard question, can someone please show me how this would work.
Thank you so much.

[russellm72]

Think about what is the most acidic proton and the fact you have 2 equivalents of your lactone present. What might the derived enolate react with? Look up the chemical properties of lactones in your textbook/s. You should be able to find many examples of nucleophiles reacting with lactones and thus be able to work out your mechanism.

Work up is just quenching the reaction and extracting the product into its crude form. Remember under basic conditions your acid will be a salt so think why you are using acid in this case.

Without knowing your background in chemistry which I assume is limited experimentally, one can't really say more in case of confusing you.

Have a think and look up things like formation of enoloates from carbonyl compounds. There is a plethora of literature out there as it is a mammoth subject.

R.

[russellm72]

sorry that should be enolates of carbonyl compounds!