The site is organised based on the fundamental reaction mechanisms of organic chemistry.

Each chapter in the e-text is structured to include :

1. Tutorial / review materials
2. Study Tips
3. Interactive images
4. Worked problems
5. Practice drill problems

The tutorial materials will give a short overview of the chapter content, drawing attention to the key concepts. It will provide access to review materials on these concepts, using multimedia images/movies etc. to enhance and facilitate the learning (e.g. JMOL images, mechanism movies etc.). Some of these pages will be cross linked to other chapters (e.g. reviews of carbocations, nucleophilicity etc.) and there will be a glossary of the whole site with definitions and links to the more detailed reviews.

The worked and practice drill problems will provide instant feedback so that a student is directed towards the topics that they as an individual need to spend more time on.

There are two fundamental approaches to teaching organic chemistry. The functional group approach and the mechanistic approach. Most (but not all) text books use the functional group approach, but many organic chemists really think on a mechanistic approach. I believe that the mechanistic approach is the best way to understand organic chemistry from a how and why point of view rather than a tedious memorisation approach. The mechanisitic way is the way I think about and approach organic chemistry. It is essentially the way organic chemistry has been taught at the University of Calgary for 20+ years.

In many ways it is inspired by "A Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry" by Peter Sykes, a book I first used in my first year as an undergraduate in 1984.