Solomons' Organic Chemistry has a strong legacy (over 50 years) of tried and true content. The authors are known for striking a balance between the theory and practice of organic chemistry. In this new edition special attention is paid towards helping students learn how to put the various pieces of organic chemistry together in order to solve problems. The notion of a "puzzle", or understanding how different molecules react together to create products, is a focus of the authors’ pedagogy. A central theme of the authors' approach to organic chemistry is to emphasize the relationship between structure and reactivity. To accomplish this, the content is organized in a way that combines the most useful features of a functional group approach with one largely based on reaction mechanisms. The authors' philosophy is to emphasize mechanisms and their common aspects as often as possible, and at the same time, use the unifying features of functional groups as the basis for most chapters. The structural aspects of the authors' approach show students what organic chemistry is. Mechanistic aspects of their approach show students how it works.