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One hundred undergraduate students at a large southern university were the subjects of a study to determine whether the persuasion process encompasses two mutually exclusive strategies--systematic or heuristic processing of information--or whether the two processes are, in fact, independent. Subjects participated in groups of about l5 and were randomly assigned to the two treatment groups. In an effort to demonstrate that the heuristic and systematic processes could be used simultaneously, three constructs--need for cognition, argument quality, and non-content heuristic--were operationalized. The study was a laboratory experiment employing a repeated measures design, and the design of the experiment yielded three types of data: those generated from evaluating the overall message, the individual arguments, and the cumulative arguments. Results indicated that (1) heuristic and systematic processes can be used simultaneously while encountering a persuasive communication; (2) being motivated to use heuristic processes appears to be different from being unmotivated to use systematic processes; and; (3) a study of interactions between motivations for using heuristic processes and motivations for using systematic processes is in order. (Three figures of data are included.) (NH)