Adults’ Use of Text Structure in the Recall of a Scientific Journal Article

College students were randomly assigned either to a condition where they received information on the organization of a journal article or to a control condition where they did not receive this training. A week later, half the students were randomly assigned to read a scientific article that used canonical organization while the other half read the same article that made sense but did not adhere to canonical organization. Following reading, the students wrote down everything they could remember about the article and the written recalls were scored for number of idea units recalled. Results indicated a significant main effect such that students who had knowledge of text structure recalled significantly more of the canonical as well as the noncanonically organized text than did those who had not received training in text structure. The discussion addresses how knowledge of structure may be used in comprehension and recall.