You will participate in-class by serving as further attackers, after the team attackers have finished. You will also be responsible for grading your peers who are serving as panelists. It is vital to learn how to evaluate an argument calmly and objectively. Discussing the following questions will help. These questions will enable you to break down an argument into its component parts, thereby avoiding the common tendency to be swayed by a presenter's delivery techniques or by one's own set of biases and opinions.
Empiricism implies going to the best source for material.
This suggests that original, defendable, research material is preferable to secondary sources, which in turn are preferable to hearsay. A fact is a statement that can be proven. In contrast, an opinion is a statement that expresses how a person feels about an issue or what someone thinks is true. This process of discrimination often ties in with the concept of empiricism. Facts are generally empirically determined from research.