The stated goal of the authors is to convey the excitement of discovery within chemistry. The text does this with chemical puzzles to start and end each chapter, and also with some emphasis on the people of chemistry. My primary criterion when evaluating a text is clarity of writing, and this book meets that criterion well. The concepts are clearly stated, and the calculations are carefully presented. Visually, this book is clean and clear.
Graphics are common, but never to the point of seeming too busy.
A single ancillary was reviewed with this text, the Saunders Interactive General Chemistry CD-ROM by Kotz and Vining. The full text of the textbook is present in PDF format, but that is the least of the content. A complete Interactive Chemistry program is included, which amounts to a fully realized multimedia presentation of General Chemistry . Rather than mimic the Kotz and Treichel text, it presents an independent interactive learning experience covering the main concepts of each chapter. Problem-solving tutorials are included, as are many interactive graphs and video demonstrations.