The purpose of this study was to systematically reclassify Oxford's (1990) strategy taxonomy by focusing on writing skills in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting and then determine whether there was any relationship between strategy use and perceived writing ability and writing difficulty. Data collected from business majors (N = 331) attending three universities of science and technology were subjected to item analysis and exploratory factor analysis, and the following four strategy use factors were uncovered: Cognitive/ preparation strategy use, compensation/supporting strategy use, affective strategy use and social/textual interaction strategy use. Students used compensation/supporting strategies the most and affective strategies least frequently. A statistically significant positive relationship between the use of cognitive/preparation strategies and students' self-rated writing ability and a statistically significant negative relationship between cognitive/preparation strategy use and writing difficulty were found. These results suggest that cognitive/ preparation strategies can serve as an effective predictor of EFL learners' self-rated writing ability and that students' writing difficulty lies in their cognitive/preparation strategy use. Implications for teaching EFL writing are discussed, including several techniques that teachers can employ in their classrooms to encourage cognitive/ preparation strategy use by students.