Twenty college students read passages from John Steinbeck's "Log from the Sea of Cortez," so that the effect of their study strategies on their recall of idea units in the passages could be tested, both immediately after reading and after a one-week delay. The experiment provided a comparison of the effectiveness of two imposed study patterns, a written strategy and a relational strategy, with students' spontaneous study strategies. A control group was told to read the material but was not told to study it. Subjects in the written strategy group were trained to write an outline of the passage as they read, while the subjects in the relational strategy group mentally related information in the passage with something they already knew. The spontaneous group was untrained. Results indicated that the spontaneous strategy group remembered significantly more idea units than the other three groups. These findings suggest three possible explanations: (1) perhaps the mnemonic processes of college students cannot be changed merely by instructing them to adopt a particular strategy; (2) the training of the written and relational strategy groups might not have been long enough or provided enough practice; or (3) interference from the training passages may have occurred. Recall of three importance levels (1 being most important, 2 moderately important, and 3 being least important) was also tested, and across all variables the level 2 idea units were recalled less successfully--a result that is inconsistent with previous research. This suggests that for this type of prose, memorability and importance level are separate characteristics. (References and figures are appended.) (SKC)