Wedge Dash Diagram of 1,2-Dichloroethane I'm in class right now and my teacher put this up on the board as a representation of 1,2-dichloroethane. He also projected a model. I'm thinking ... his board drawing is wrong. Shouldn't the chlorines also be on dashes too? There's no way the chlorines can be in the same plane as the carbon atoms; the model makes it too obvious.
The teacher's drawing is correct.  Of course there are other possible conformers that could be drawn, but there is nothing wrong with the one that is pictured.   Basic rule:  a dashed wedge indicates a bond projecting behind the plane of the screen, a bold wedge indicates a bond projecting out in front of the plane of the screen, and a simple solid line indicates a bond existing in the plane of the screen.  Also note that this drawing notation can be used for any molecule, not just carbon systems.