English for Special Purposes: Using PowerPoint Eric S. Rabkin Department of English University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan presented at the University of Trento 02 May 2002 Copyright  2002 Eric S. Rabkin

2 Areas for Consideration The Audience for your communication The Purpose of your communication The Audience-and-Purpose of your communication The Uses of PowerPoint to fulfill your audience-and-purpose The Literal Rhetoric of PowerPoint The Visual Rhetoric of PowerPoint

3 The Audience for your communication General relation of the audience to presenter Degrees of knowledge of the audience about the subject of the communication Initial positions of the audience on the subject of the communication Size of the audience Physical relation of the audience to the presenter

4 The Purpose of your communication Inform - e.g., instruction manual Persuade - e.g., business plan Entertain - e.g., retirement talk Enliven - e.g., sermon

5 The Audience-and-Purpose of your communication Write a single sentence expressing your audience-and-purpose as a unified task concept.

6 The Uses of PowerPoint Background highlighting of key concepts Display of key materials (pictures, tables, charts, video clips, etc.) Storage and possible display of contingency materials Production of handouts Production of takeaway presentation Free-standing communication

7 The Literal Rhetoric of PowerPoint Chunk your ideas Reuse key terms

8 The Visual Rhetoric of PowerPoint Three general types of graphics: –Decoration Logos are good Dingbats are bad –Illustration Main illustrations highlight key points Gratuitous illustrations obscure key points –Visualization: an intrinsic part of the story Information density Consider the right information density for your audience- and-purpose at each moment in your presentation.

9 Technical Introduction to PowerPoint Review, examine, and emulate II2PPTSept98.ppt Download file to disk from

10 Live example…