Writing Feedback /
Knowledge gained from personal experience or from books and other printed material; which is better? [4]
compare and contrast knowledge
Prompt:
compare and contrast knowledge gained from personal experience with knowledge gained from books or other printed material. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?There are two main types of obtaining knowledge: by real-life experiences and through printed materials. The different ways of learning generate no shortage debate about which one is better. In my individual opinion, it is more advantages to learn directly from experiences than books. I feel this way for two major reasons, which I will explore in the following essay.
First of all, books are not always accurate and often contradict with what we experience from the real world. This is because a book can be written by unqualified authors and also contain their personal opinion or their biased eyes. My own experience in the US is a compelling example of this. Being a pre-immigrant to the US, I acknowledge that US citizens are not friendly and hard to have a conversation. When I moved to the US, my point-of-view change completely. Not only be generous, my neighbors are also kind and helpful. They help our family assimilate the new life and even teach us basic English statements to order food or buy groceries. Furthermore, we usually start our day with several sweet greeting.
Secondly, real-life experience tends to stay with us longer than printed information. Books are shelved and forgotten about shortly after we read them. Once I had an assignment about growing a little green bean tree, I collected all information from different sources including books, Internets, articles. In spite of many efforts to follow all strict rule of growing this tree, my result was not good as what I expected. Fortunately, when I consult my grandfather, he taught me a valuable lesson which I encountered in several pages of a book is that overly water or fertilize might harm the growth of the tree. What I learned from my grandfather about techniques, methods, and skills are burned into my memory and I will never forget it. This is because I had a practical experience rather than temporary theoretical information.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that knowledge gained from experience is more important than one from reading. This is because books are sometimes inaccurate, and we are predisposed to remember our personal memories longer.