Knowledge gained from personal experience or from books and other printed material; which is better?

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.

Hi, I think you have a good sense of idea development, as best shown in the first paragraph of the body. However, in my own personal opinion, I think your essay sounds a bit subjective because of the example in the second paragraph of the body. It's just my idea but I suggest that if you already use an example from your own experience in the first point, then use objective reasoning instead in the second. It will make your essay appear more justified and well developed.

Also you make a lot of grammatical mistakes in this essay, I suggest reviewing your grammar carefully in the process of writing and proofreading. Hope this is helpful.

In my individual opinion
You can remove individual, Which is better, in my opinion.

it is more advantages
'There are more advantages' is correct.

change completely.
Changed.

Not only be generous, my neighbors are also kind and helpful.
You can rephrase this sentence but with additional information about your neighbors. You jumped from moving to US then describing your neighbors without any comparison to books.

Though you have mentioned that books can be written by unqualified authors, you should have given an example about a certain book that may relate to you moving to the US.

teach us basic English statements
Maybe you can use common ways or phrases in ordering food and such.

It is good that you wrote a personal experience about your grandfather, although you can correct your vocabulary or grammar better.

I believe that this is how you should have presented your essay.

B1: knowledge gained from books
B2: knowledge gained from experiences
B3: your personal opinion, which is experiences are better than books

This is a contrast/compare essay, you should have written both views then your personal opinion.

Kim, this being a compare and contrast essay, the approach should have been coming first from a public approach and then a personal approach, as indicated by the personal opinion instruction at the end of the original prompt. You must learn to use the proper introduction sentences and ending transition sentences in your essay in order to properly represent a compare/contrast then personal opinion essay.

Here are some samples of how you could have more properly approached the discussion of this essay:

Publicly, books teach us about the theoretical approach to... In comparison to this, personal experience gives better lessons because of life experiences.

Life experiences, in contrast and based on public perception, is a better indicator of learning because... Hence my personal opinion that life is a better eye opener in terms of understanding practical and life lessons.

Personally, I believe that personal experience is the better outlet for learning about certain information. I believe that it is the more important learning avenue based on my experience regarding planting a tree...

This is why I can conclude this essay by saying that...

Don't count out your reasons, that does not help to increase your overall score. Rather, use transition signals in order to increase your final score for the discussion. In reality, what you wrote cannot be considered an appropriate compare and contrast essay because of the lack of proper signal phrases and transition words.