[et al.]{} 2003) that were drawn from the SDSS EDR Quasar Catalog ([Schneider]{} [et al.]{} 2002). Using this BALQSO catalog, we create a number of composite BALQSO spectra including: HiBAL (180 quasars), LoBAL (34 quasars) and FeLoBAL[^2] (10 quasars); in addition we constructed a nonBALQSO composite spectrum from a set of 892 nonBALQSOs that have the same redshift and apparent magnitude distribution as the objects in the BALQSO catalog[^3]. These spectra represent a significant increase in the signal-to-noise ratio of composite BALQSO spectra that can be used to investigate differences in continuum and emission-line properties of BALQSOs and nonBALQSOs. We examine these differences from the perspective of whether the UV/optical properties of BALQSOs and nonBALQSOs are consistent with being drawn from the same parent sample (among optically-selected quasars).

The paper is structured as follows. We review in § \[sec:data\] our initial quasar sample and the resulting BALQSO sample. Section \[sec:composite\] discusses the construction and application of our composite spectra. We then analyze the broad-band color (§ \[sec:colors\]) and UV/optical continuum (§ \[sec:continuum\]) properties of BALQSOs. An investigation of the emission-line properties is given in in § \[sec:emline\]. In § \[sec:parent\] we comment on what our results mean in terms of 