Personal experience vs. logic

During the in-class discussion of the 2 papers by Donna and David, the issue of personal experience being necessary to convince readers was a source of debate amongst our group. I took the stance that David's essay would had been stronger if he had included more of his experience in Syracuse and written the essay from a first-person perspective. However, I think Donna's essay would have been more convincing if it had been written from a logical perspective with some appeal to emotion. I felt that David had a better grasp on descriptive language and appealing to reader's emotion than Donna. Donna's essay revealed her passion about her subject but her claims lacked support. She relied too much on her own feelings and that weakened her argument. For me her writing would be better served if she focused more on crafting a logical argument with strong supporting clauses such as she referred to in her final paragraph. The difference in reader's taste is a problem for all writers as some prefer more personal based writing and other more detached and factual writing. The question should not be which one is better than the other or which one the reader would like but is there a way to do both well? And also which writing situation better suits the two forms if one is to be chosen over the other. As a reader I prefer personal experiences that I can relate to or imagine because if the writer can make me see what they are trying to say then I will be more likely to agree with them. However, the logic must still be there and sometimes it mus overshadow personal experience...