A study examined the relationships between the quality of writing on composition examinations and topic selection, outlining, rough drafting, and revision. A sample of 1,372 grade twelve students' essays was examined. Among the issues examined were how topic selection affects the final essay score, if and how selection of topic affects the type or amount of revision made between a rough and final drafts, whether students who use an outline and/or a rough draft score higher than those who do not, and what type of revision occurs between a rough and final drafts on essay tests and whether this revision differs substantively with respect to high- and low-scored essays. The results indicated a significant relationship between the essay topic selected from a number of topics and the score obtained, and between the use of an outline and rough draft together and the resulting score. The number of high scores that a particular topic received was inversely proportional to the frequency of that topic's selection. Although outlining and rough drafting techniques varied considerably, students who used them in conjunction scored significantly higher than students who did not. No significant relationships were found between the topic selected and the amount of revision conducted, or between the amount and type of revision and the score obtained. However, qualitative analysis of the revisions in relation to score suggests a qualitative difference in some categories, particularly stylistic and rhetorical. Students with weaker writing abilities revised as much as more able writers, and across the same revision categories: mechanical, lexical, syntactic, stylistic, figurative, and rhetorical. (Tables of data are included.) (Author/HTH)