Creating More Effective PowerPoint Presentations

Today’s Goals Using PowerPoint as a presentation aid Using good design principles Selecting bells and whistles Creating the right finished product

Criticisms of PowerPoint Bullet points reduce complex ideas to oversimplified, dumbed-down bits. Microsoft’s templates and add-ins make presentations generic, annoying, and too sales-pitchy. PowerPoint = teleprompter? Add your own: ________________

As you prepare, ask: Is PowerPoint the most appropriate medium for this talk?  Structure  One-way communication  Physical arrangement of room  Alternatives

More questions… How much time do I have for the presentation?  Information Overload  Prioritizing and Outlining  Slides/minute  Spontaneous learning

More questions… How much information needs to be displayed on the screen? How much can I just talk about?  Reading slides  Intended interruptions  Evocative images, words

More questions… What is the best way to help my audience visualize what I’m trying to communicate?  Graphs/Charts  Photos  Text in bullet points or paragraphs  Sound

Design Matching format to content Consistency Emphasis Readability

Fonts 40 point Sans-serif (Tw Cen MT) 20 point Sans-serif 40 point Serif (Times New Roman) 20 point Serif Light blue text on blue background Black text on blue background

Black Serif Font on White Background "On the Decline of Oracles“ by Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath ( ) was born in Boston, and her work reflects both her New England heritage and the landscape of England where she later lived with her husband, poet Ted Hughes. What Hughes called her "crackling verbal energy" is apparent in her poems' biting precision of word and image. Gestures in her life of defiance and ecstasy, love or despair, are reimagined in brilliant archetypal patterns. In the year before her suicide, she was writing the poems that secured her fame -- poems about her children and her failed marriage, about death and her imagination.

November 2004 State Cross-Industry estimates STOCC_CODEOCC_TITLETOT_EMPH_MEANA_MEAN MA All Occupations MA Management occupations MA Chief executives MA General and operations managers MA Advertising and promotions managers MA Marketing managers MA Sales managers MA Public relations managers MA Administrative services managers MA Computer and information systems managers MA Financial managers MA Compensation and benefits managers MA Training and development managers MA Human resources managers, all other MA Industrial production managers MA Purchasing managers

Abraham Lincoln’s Biography "I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher... but that was all." "I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher... but that was all."

"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families—second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher... but that was all."

The Presidency of Lincoln Until… The South Secedes!

How to Polish the Presentation Master Slides Notes Rehearsal Handouts Saving