This paper summarizes my PhD thesis devoted to an introduction of a new strategy formalism for the first-order rewrite system, called ELAN. Goals of my PhD thesis are proposing and studying different constructions expressing the control of rewriting at the level of rules and strategies, studying a strategy-directed cooperation of procedures (i.e. solvers), and finally, exploring certain reflexive aspects of computational systems to be able to express their transformations by computational systems. The principal goal is a design of a declarative, strictly typed and extensible strategy language based on rewriting logic within the existing framework ELAN. A programming style of the strategy language, different language constructions and extensions (e.g. high-level or polymorphic strategies) and several used implementation techniques (e.g. partial evaluation, or compilation) are also studied in this thesis. This paper outlines the principal problems attacked in this thesis, highlights several new ideas and proposed solutions.