A study determined the effect of outlining and networking on college students' comprehension and retention of expository text, and examined the individual difference of preferred dominant hemispheric mode for its effect and interaction with the notetaking strategy. Subjects, 98 students enrolled in a required study skills course at Delaware State College, were divided into three groups. Five hours of instruction in outlining were given to one experimental group, while the other experimental group received instruction in networking, a form of graphic organizer. The third group constituted a control group as it received no textbook notetaking instruction. Each group was given a 20-item pretest, posttest, and retention test. Results indicated that: (1) all groups achieved statistically significant improved scores; (2) the outlining group produced a t-score of paired means double that of the other groups; (3) the drop in scores from the post- to retention test was statistically significant for the outlining and control group, but the networking group's score did not vary in a statistically significant way; and (3) the interaction between the treatment groups and the dominant hemispheric modes was not statistically significant with regards to posttest scores but was statistically significant with respect to the retention test scores. Findings suggest that outlining significantly aided academically underprepared college readers to achieve greater comprehension on the immediate recall test than did the networking strategy, although networking significantly improved students' ability to retain information over time. (Two figures and seven tables of data are included; 49 references are attached.) (Author/RS)