Name: Nguyễn Minh Tuấn

ID : 3118380376
Class : DAN1188

COMPARISON – CONTRAST ESSAY

Topic: Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience
with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source
is more important? Why?

In this rapidly-changing world, people need to gain as much data

as possible to compete with others. Many attend gaining through life
to further their knowledge, while others prefer gaining knowledge
from books. Although they are both ideal sources of knowledge, books
and experience differ from each other in terms of the range of data
and practicality. In my opinion, what we learn from experience plays
an essential role in modern life.
Both books and experience provided useful knowledge. Books
provide us with theoretical knowledge such as facts, history, and
subject matter expertise. On the other hand, experience gives us
practical knowledge like wisdom, skills, and lessons to become the
better persons we are.
Despite the mentioned similarity, there are several differences
between the two sources of knowledge.
The first point is about the range of information. The most
significant advantage of books is that they hold all knowledge gained
by many generations. Books allow us to expand the depth of our data
by sharing other people’s experiences. Unlike books, the experience
limited to ourselves and that of people we know. However, once we
experience something, we then begin to understand what that
experience is personal to us, which means that we start to understand
ourselves.
Furthermore, the practicality of the two sources of knowledge is
also different. For example, books don’t deal with things like love and
care feelings, tastes of foods, and music tones. In other words, books
are too abstract to apply to real life. Another example, if one wants to
learn swimming, he needs to practice learning to swim. In other
quarters, lessons learned from experience are more realistic to apply
to our lives.
From my standpoint, there are two reasons why I think
experience is a better source of knowledge than books. First,
experience assists us in becoming more socially active. Instead of
studying materials in an isolated condition, by practising more, we can
meet more people in society. Second, learning from experience is
more stable than learning from books. When we make a mistake in
our life or our work, it remains in our mind very better than a matter
that we just read about it in a book or magazine.
In conclusion, books and experience are both significant sources
of knowledge during our life, but I believe that learning from
experiences is way more important. However, no matter which model
we choose, they both help us approach knowledge of human being.