diff --git a/cachematrix.R b/cachematrix.R
index a50be65aa44..96a591f2976 100644
--- a/cachematrix.R
+++ b/cachematrix.R
@@ -1,15 +1,42 @@
-## Put comments here that give an overall description of what your
-## functions do
+## The following functions are used in tandom to create a matrix along with calculating and
+## caching its inverse (a time consuming operation).
+##
+## Example usage
+## a<-makeCacheMatrix()
+## a$set(matrix(1:4,2,2))
+## cacheSolve(a)
 
-## Write a short comment describing this function
+## makeCacheMatrix constructs an empty matrix and stores it in a variable and contains methods to get / set a matrix
+## to that variable. It also initializes a variable that can store the inverse of the matrix.
 
 makeCacheMatrix <- function(x = matrix()) {
-
+    inverseMatrix <- NULL
+    set <- function(y) {
+        x <<- y
+        inverseMatrix <<- NULL
+    }
+    get <- function() x
+    setInverseMatrix <- function(solve) inverseMatrix <<- solve
+    getInverseMatrix <- function() inverseMatrix
+    list(set = set, get = get,
+         setInverseMatrix = setInverseMatrix,
+         getInverseMatrix = getInverseMatrix)
 }
 
 
-## Write a short comment describing this function
+## cacheSolve takes in a matrix as an argument and returns the cached inverse if it exists,
+## otherwise it calculates the inverse, stores it in cache and then returns it.
 
-cacheSolve <- function(x, ...) {
+cacheSolve <- function(x =, ...) {
         ## Return a matrix that is the inverse of 'x'
+    
+    inverseMatrix <- x$getInverseMatrix()
+    if(!is.null(inverseMatrix)) {
+        message("getting cached data")
+        return(inverseMatrix)
+    }
+    data <- x$get()
+    inverseMatrix <- solve(data, ...)
+    x$setInverseMatrix(inverseMatrix)
+    inverseMatrix
 }