Book excerpt: Science of Synthesis provides a critical review of the synthetic methodology developed from the early 1800s to date for the entire field of organic and organometallic chemistry. As the only resource providing full-text descriptions of organic transformations and synthetic methods as well as experimental procedures, Science of Synthesis is therefore a unique chemical information tool. Over 1000 world-renowned experts have chosen the most important molecular transformations for a class of organic compounds and elaborated on their scope and limitations. The systematic, logical and consistent organization of the synthetic methods for each functional group enables users to quickly find out which methods are useful for a particular synthesis and which are not. Effective and practical experimental procedures can be implemented quickly and easily in the lab. The content of this e-book was originally published in November 2007.