Supporting students of all levels to move beyond empirical arguments, which employ example based reasoning to endorse universal truths and are thus mathematically invalid, remains a challenging goal in mathematics education. Arguments that make use of generic examples are both mathematically valid and accessible for even young learners. However, discerning whether students are viewing or using an example as a specific case, or a general case, is difficult. In this paper, we open the space between empirical and generic use of examples and establish categories of example-use regarding odd and even numbers. We reveal discursive markers pointing towards whether a learner is referring to particularity or generality in their example-based reasoning.