In teaching organic chemistry laboratory at this university, we eliminated the use of "canned" experiments from textbooks. Instead, we present students with literature studies that form the basis of developing new unpublished experiments to answer specific questions. In this research approach, students are better exposed to the chemical literature, gain experience in experimental design, and are forced to do more spectral interpretations rather than simply match spectra with standard spectra. Here we present two projects that are the result of this research-based approach. Both projects involved relatively advanced stereochemical concepts and one study relied on 1D or 2D NOE NMR experiments. (Contains 1 figure.)