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Does the speaker clearly distinguish among facts, inferences, and opinions? Facts are verifiable units of information that can be confirmed by independent observations. Inferences are projections based on facts. Opinions add personal judgments to inferences: They tell us what someone thinks about a subject. For example, “Mary was late for class today” is a fact. “Mary will probably be late for class again tomorrow” is an inference, “Mary is an irresponsible student” is an opinion. It may sound easy to make these distinctions among facts, inferences, and opinions, but you must be constantly alert to detect confusions of them in the messages you hear.
At the height of the media frenzy during the investigation of President Clinton, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry charged that “in our political culture now, opinion often is pronounced as judgment before there are facts to support opinion.” Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time magazine, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication, supported his charge by pointing out a kind of “echo-chamber” effect in modern journalism. The echo chamber works this way: An unconfirmed rumor is initially published by one news source, and then is repeated by others as though it had been substantiated. Of one such rumor, Isaacson said: Within one day, it had spun around the city of Washington as if it were fact, and it had gotten embellished.
Facts, inferences, and opinions all have a legitimate place in public discourse, but they also can be misused. opnon

Does the speaker cite credible sources? Ethical speakers specify the credentials of their sources. When the credentials are left out or described in vague terms, the testimony may be questionable. We recently found an advertisement for a health food product that contained “statements by doctors.” A quick check of the current directory of the American Medical Association revealed that only one of the six “doctors” cited was a member of the AMA and that his credentials were misrepresented. Always ask yourself, “Where does this information come from?” and “Are these sources qualified to speak on the topic?” This was a major problem during the recent investigation of President Bill Clinton: Many media outlets during that time quoted unnamed or anonymous sources for the “facts” they were reporting. This created a formidable barrier to critical thinking by making it hard to judge the reports intelligently.

Topics for skits can be ordinary scenes in the everyday lives of people or the world’s heroes. Choose those known everywhere in common fields of culture and arts.
Songs can be any of the romantic type or pop favorites. There are many national and seasoned poets whose poems can be recited meaningfully in class. Meanwhile, items that can be demonstrated include telephone answering machine or fax machine, a car or jeepney, a TV set, cleaning contact lenses and laundry.
Your choice of handicraft or menu should be usefulness, simplicity, economy and ease. Either your teacher assigns you the kind of handicraft or you suggest. Menu preparation requires that the activity be done in a school kitchen.