This is tough topic because both generality and specifity are relative terms. You can never pin them down for they are always determined by their context. Information is general when it covers a wide variety of phenomena. This is true, too. If I were to bring up the subject of traditional African cultures, most people would know that Africans speak languages or that they speak different languages than Europeans.
Specific information subsumes a very limited number and variety of phenomena.
The most specific information only deals with one and only one phenomenon or variety of phenomenon. Almost all information that you're exposed to in college occupies the continuum between completely general and completely specific information. The appropriateness of information, whether it is too general or too specific, is determined by its context. Your first task, then, is to determine what informational level is appropriate for the project of the course or of the learning project that you're involved in. Obviously, the information that you're expected to retain in a freshman course would be more general information.