documentRoot.appendChild(documentElement);
    documentElement = document.createElement("year");
    documentElement.setTextContent(year);
    documentRoot.appendChild(documentElement);
    documentElement = document.createElement("month");
    documentElement.setTextContent(month);
    documentRoot.appendChild(documentElement);
    return document;
  }
but trying to get the doc as a string produces a partial document
(e.g. "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?
<response><firstname>DAVE")
  private String getXMLString(Document document) throws Exception {
    StringWriter swriter = new StringWriter();
    TransformerFactory tFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
    Transformer transformer = tFactory.newTransformer();
    DOMSource source = new DOMSource(document);
    StreamResult result = new StreamResult(swriter);
    transformer.transform(source, result);
    swriter.close();
    return swriter.toString();
  }
Any ideas why or how to troubleshoot further?  Thanks, - Dave