The efforts of researchers to produce a pool of approximately 30 validated and field-tested topics for use in future administrations of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination in writing are reviewed in this paper. Various sections of the paper (1) describe the procedures followed; (2) explain the reasons for making certain important decisions, including the phrasing of topics and selection of criteria for choosing certain topics and for rejecting others; and (3) present the results of the field tests of the chosen topics. Based on the findings of the field tests, the paper concludes that responsible researchers and testwriters can no longer take essay examination topics for granted. (FL)