David Singh Oak Ridge National Laboratory The linearized augmented planewave (LAPW) method is a commonly used electronic structure approach for density functional calculations and is implemented in several widely used computer codes, such as WIEN2k, ELK, FLEUR and others. It is generally viewed as the most accurate approach for performing density functional calculations. This talk provides a practical overview of the LAPW and related augmented planewave based methods. The emphasis is on aspects of the methodology that affect calculations in practice. The goal is to provide information that will be useful to researchers performing LAPW calculations using existing codes.