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short communications
The R factors and the numbers of independent atoms for the entire set of molecular organic structures contained in the Cambridge Structural Database were retrieved and analysed. The average R factor for all structures containing the same number of independent atoms was plotted against the number of independent atoms. A clear correlation was observed. The plot is suggested to give a graphical overview of how values of the R factor for large-molecule structures with 200-1000 independent atoms increase as the number of independent atoms increases.