Learning from books or from experience ? What is your opinion?

I want to take the Toeic SW test so i need you practice my writing. The essay is required approximately 300 words. Please give me some advices.

To lead a meaningful life, we need to learn new things. Some people believe that learning from books is better, but I maintain learning from experience is more effective. Let me state some reasons and examples to support my ideas.

Books are very important because they contain huge sources of information that authors have researched for many years. But how can we remember all the things written in the books? And how long does it take for us to memorize them? On the other hand, learning from experience is more certain. Something which you have experienced is not easy to forget. Furthermore, all the materials in books are not really necessary. In some cases, the material is not what you need to solve your problem. In other words, you can just only use the information in books as the basis for you to analyze the whole problem. Then experience will help out.

One simple example is my experience in studying business jargon in Japanese. Like other languages, there are different ways to express specific business terms. It was tough to remember all the words and phrases. There are also rules for grammar, but the rules have so many exceptions, so you have to learn the exceptions by heart, case by case. I practiced with friends many times but still felt the grammar was difficult. But once I started working, I used those words everyday to communicate with my clients, and to talk with my boss, so it was easier for me to remember. I didn't need to learn by heart, and I remember naturally. Sometimes, I made mistakes, but I am sure that I will never repeat those mistakes again because I have experienced them physically.

Although books offer huge sources of information that are essential for people to increase their knowledge, we are mere human beings and cannot memorize everything. Therefore, the best way to learn is experiencing by your own.

Let's clear a few things up. :]
First, when you're using commas, you only put a space after it: "life, "
You don't need one before the comma.
Second, I think that you can better word the last three sentences. When you say "But which way is better?", the reader has to read forward to see what you are talking about. Instead, you should combine the sentence with the next ones: "Some people believe that learning from books is better, but I maintain that learning from experience is more effective." or something like that.

Overall, very nice. You added a nice example here to support your thesis. I would say that once you improve your grammatical skills even more, you will able to write very well.

This sort of style rule might be confusing for someone who is still trying to learn the basics.

Tomomi, this is a good change to learn what a conjunction is and how it works. Look at Freezard's advice about conjunctions, and consider my example.

EXAMPLE:
Look at Freezard's advice about conjunctions, and consider my example.
or
Look at Freezard's advice about conjunctions. Consider my example.
(When you have 2 complete sentences, you can separate them with a period (#2) or with a conjunction + comma (#1)

You should rewrite the essay and use freezard's corrections to improve it. Then, I will try to find more ways to improve it. Keep practicing!!

It is very important to use a program with a spell checker. (Learning from experiences can be good, but learning from books improves your spelling!! :-)

Oh! I should have given some examples... Thank for filling in, Kevin! :)

Thank you for correcting my essay, Freezard.

I made a lot of mistakes that I have never realized before. Thank you for correcting my essay in details.
I will keep praticing to improve my writing.

Thank you so much, Kevin.

I will practice how to use the conjunctions to improve my writing.

Learning from experience is the best if you can do it. Because that will give you first hand knowledge. But certain things we have to learn from books too. Basic Arithmetic, History we have to learn from books. So both are important for you to success in life.

Asoka

You need to work on the structure of your sentences. I know what it is that you are trying to say, but you are not writing it very clearly. When you write a sentence, go over it in your mind, over and over again, to ensure that it makes sense and that it is what you want to say. Usually, if it sounds terrible, or not right, it isn't right.

Why don't you re-work your essay and then re-present it to the forum? I am sure everyone would like to see it again, corrected.

Thanks,

Mark

Thank you Asoka.

I totally agree with you that both are important. But I still think that something you experienced is more certain. Because I myself have experienced a lot of things and realized that is true.

Anyway, thank you for your ideas. I don't deny that learning from books is not good, it is really the basis for us to analyze everything around our lives.

Thank you for your ideas for my thread, Mark.
I think you are right. hihi...I am a lazy person to read the sentences again and again to check out the grammar or to ensure that is makes sense or not.

Oh, actually I re-write my essay but have not re-posted to the forum.
I will do it later. Thank you for reminding me.

Tomomi.

Im assuming the promt for this essay is something like: Is more knowledge gained from reading books or from personal experience?

Your first paragraph seems to jump around between the idea of books and experience. You may want to have you first paragraph focus on books, and the arguments for and against them. Then in your second paragraph, focus on experiences, and reasons why they shape knowledge better that books do.

A couple sentences run on a bit to long such as: I practiced with friends many times but still felt the grammar was difficult. But once I started working, I used those words everyday to communicate with my clients, and to talk with my boss, so it was easier for me to remember. Try to break this up in a way that makes it easier to understand.

I also think you should add a little bit to you concluding paragraph. Its only two sentences long and should tie together all the information that you presented in you essay, and give the reader a final solid basis for your reasoning.