Beyond Books

[4] It has been said ``not everything that is learned is contained in the books.'' Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more imprtant? Why?

Books were, are and will still be the media of knowledge. They record the ideas from ancient giants of wisdom, propagate the brand new technologies in our contemporaries, and prospect all kinds of possible futures. However, not all knowledge of human beings are availble in books and 21 century has seen several other ways to obtain knowledge.

Books are written for several purposes. One dominant purpose is to summarize a theory or a procedure others might find interesting or useful. Mathematicians and physists, such as Gauss and Newton, put their strict theory about geometry and gravity into their immortal works. Novelists and poets contrive plottings and capture their delicate feelings with poems, which are later assembled into novels and booklets. Historians and photographers tell stories about their findings in the past or with their lenses. We read them to appreciate their deep cognition of the universe, their understanding of beauty and the bitterness and happiness in our lives.

But there has always been knowledge we can't find in any book. Though there are books on traveling, we can still enjoy it by travel instead of reading them. The fun of travel is not only the sighting of famous scenes, which could be told by photographers or writers in books, but also the sweat you spend in managing yourself to be there, talking with other peers on the same way, and even the frustration you have to overcome. Lots of trivialities are missing from all kinds of books. Only the time you yourself come to the point, you will find a whole new story and quickly learn from your experience.

What's more we have more and more media to obtain knowledge. Internet, for example, must be one of the convenient alternatives. There are on-line encyclopedias, forums and chatting rooms. You might find the meaning of almost any unknown professional terms by typing them in the search box of wikipedia.org. By posting your questions on forums or sending instant message in chatting rooms, you might get the most instantaneous feedback from other users. As long as you get to know how to explore the Internet, you migth get obsessed with it and forget about books, since there are more interactions: you might create an entry in wikipedia.org to tell other people a new term which hasn't been included, and you might also answer others' questions and win their admirations, while facing a dull book will put all those excitement away.

But books will still play an important role in the following few years. We might find it more leasureful by sipping a cup of coffee under the afternoon sunshine while taking a book in hand, flipping page by page slowly and thinking as we wish. All other competitors will help us learn more and help us enjoy learning knowledge.

34 min, 467 words
an interruption, too bad... poor vocabulary @@
typos: availble -> available, physist -> physicist, migth -> might, leasurefu -> leisurely
other mistakes: in our contemporaries -> from...
excitement -> excitements
add ``At the same time,'' to the last sentence.

Still slow!