Thank you for the further responses...

...and thank you for reading the essay in bits as pieces and responding the same way rather than feeling a need to read the whole thing in one sitting and therefore not reading it at all simply because you didn't have the time to read it all at once, or skimming through the whole thing for the same reasons and therefore not absorbing enough of the info I wrote down to give a coherent response. It's much appreciated, and I hope others on the board follow your lead in the future!

And thank you for more very good responses! I will incorporate as many of your ideas into the final draft of my essay as I can.