Hi amitche2!
Unfortunately, MediaLab currently does not allow for people to start an essay response and later go back to add more to what they had written. Once a response to an essay item has begun, anything that a person wants to add must be done before leaving that essay item. You can give people as much time to respond to an essay item by using the duration parameter; see the Questionnaire Files > Parameters section of the MediaLab manual for more information on this feature.
Jason Reed
Empirisoft Software Support Specialist