Don’t use PowerPoint.
PowerPoint was designed to help you communicate your ideas to an audience.
Figure the best way for you to communicate what you have to say. If you
need help, PowerPoint can give it to you. If you don’t need help, don’t
use it.
Who is the star? Many people in your audience are
visual learners, but not all of them. The words and images you display
will be a help to some, but are distracting to others. In a sense you are
sharing the stage with pictures. You belong in the spotlight, not
PowerPoint.
The skeleton. Many people use PowerPoint as an outline
for the talk; that’s fine, but keep it simple. Remember it is an outline
not cue cards. Never read from your slides.
The fives: 5 words per line, 5 lines per
slide, 5 seconds per visual, 1 slide every 5 minutes, people can remember
5 things.
Visuals support complex or abstract data. Don’t use
them for information which is simple or concrete. Clip art sucks.
Cartoons and furry bunnies belong on children’s television shows not on
scholarly, serious presentations. Images that are cute don’t cut it. If
you feel you need some kind of visual illustration to make a point, choose
something understated, simple and classy looking.
Consistency
is everything. Keep all your words and images in the same place.
Create a simple master slide (name or presentation, date, your
name). Fonts should be simple and easy to read. Sans serif fonts are
clean. Use a 36pt for titles and 24pt for body
text. Use color conservatively and remember it will wash on
presentation. Yellow background and black letters are good choices.
The templates are okay, but everyone has seen
them. Pick a simple one and modify it to suit your topic and style.
PowerPoint includes an option for Notes (View
menu) and Handouts (Print menu). These are extremely handy
options. Consider distributing the handouts until after the
presentation.
Check spelling,
grammar, parallelism, etc. Wait a day, and then check it again. Make
back up copies on your hard drive, email yourself a copy, print copies
and put one on a flash drive.
Assume nothing will work. A good presentation does not require media, and
media will not make a good presentation. Your audience should never
know there was a problem.
Created by Ross
T. LaBaugh
August 2009
Question?
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