Four experiments were conducted to determine whether staging, or the prominence given to various segments of information through manipulation of prose structure, affects recall of the content of prose passages. In all of the experiments, pairs of passages were used in which members of each pair had identical content but different staging patterns. Strong support was found for the hypothesis that content segments would be recalled better from passages in which they were staged at a high level. Furthermore, it was shown that, by using staging rules, it was possible to mimic the serial position effect or to destroy it at will. Results suggested that staging has its major effect on the acquisition of information but may also influence processes of retrieval and of forgetting. (Author/AA)