A series of four studies tested two methods of revising instructional text to improve students' learning from it. In one method, the revisions untangled the "cognitive knots" in the text; in the second method, the revisions highlighted the "point" of the text. Subjects for the various studies were 40 students in an intact high school biology class (study 1); 30 ninth-grade students in English and History and 29 college freshmen (study 2); 41 college students (study 3); and 12 students from the same population used in studies 1-3 and 5 professors from the University of Georgia (study 4). Both methods were tested by giving original, naturally occurring textbook excerpts to one group of students and the revised versions to a separate group, and then giving the same tests of learning to both groups. In all cases, the groups who read the revised version got significantly higher scores on the test than those who read the original version. Findings suggest that the revision techniques were effective in increasing learning. (Contains nine tables of data. Appendixes provide a pair of texts for the "cognitive knots" study, texts used in experiment 2, and instructions for experiment 3.) (Author/RS)