thank you very much for your feedback. i definitely am going to use some of your suggestions... especially making some sentences more clear. I like my Hunter reference because it gives the reader something concrete to remember... not writing in 3rd person there are so many "I's" amongst the thousands of essays, that having a person (who people may or not know of, but somewhere from their "generation") might evoke some sort of emotion. I think taking it out of the intro might be a good idea though... thanks again