Effective presentations.

1. COMMUNICATIONS
LL041
Today:
-Organizing a
Powerpoint presentation
-Effective presentations

2. ORGANIZING YOUR
PRESENTATION
1. Start with an “attention-getter”
2. State the purpose of your presentation:
3. Introduce group members
4. Provide an overview of the presentation
5. State main points with supporting details
6. Recap main points and end on a thoughtful or
memorable note

3. THE ATTENTION-GETTER
Start with an interesting or startling
 Story or
 Quotation or
 Statistic or
 Visual (make sure you explain your visual)
Don’t start with
 “My/Our topic is….” or
 “Today, I’m going to talk about….”

4. CONTENT
Each presenter should
 Clearly state his or her main points: consider
titling slides and using subheadings as needed;
 Support his or her analysis with relevant facts,
explanations, examples and/or arguments;
 Use transitions to show links between material
and between sections, as needed;
 Use visuals thoughtfully, to support the material

5. RECAP AND FINAL NOTE
 Summarize key points from the presentation
Don’t use exactly the same wording as before.
Don’t introduce any new material.
 Conclude on a note you want the audience to
remember and/or recommendations for the future
Thank your audience for their time and attention.

6. THE ART OF THE
POWERPOINT
PRESENTATION
General rules of design
Tips & tricks for Powerpoint users
Finishing touches

7. EFFECTIVE
PRESENTATIONS
Doing a presentation?
If it’s a spoken presentation, you’ve probably heard all
rules before: look professional, make eye contact, don’t
read off a paper, lift your chin, raise your voice, etc.
A Powerpoint slide show can be a great addition to a
speaker, or it might just be able to stand on its own.
An effective presentation depends not only on the
material, but on how much the slide show creator
has considered the needs of the audience.

8. EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS:
GIVE THE AUDIENCE A MAP
 Make your 1st
or 2nd
slide an outline of your
presentation.
This helps gives the audience a sense of purpose and
order… and helps the presenter(s) remember the
sequence of material.
 List only main points on the outline slide.
Using general headings or main topics in the outline
provides a purposeful path without giving away too
many details.

9. A TYPICAL SLIDE
PRESENTATION…
 Uses 1-2 slides per minute of spoken material
 Is typically written in point form, not complete
sentences (outside quotations excepted)
 Includes only 4 or 5 briefly stated points per slide
 Shows consideration of design (colour, font,
spacing and images) More on this later.
NOTE : a slide presentation without a spoken
component follows slightly different rules.
Why do you think this is?

10. THOUGHTFUL SLIDE DESIGN:
SPACE
Don’t overwhelm your audience with a slide
full of text.
 Bullet points help to space out main ideas… and so
does space! Consider leaving blank lines between.
 Consider showing one point at a time:
 Will help audience concentrate on what you are saying
 Will prevent audience from reading ahead
 Will help you keep your presentation focused

11. ONE POINT AT A TIME? ANIMATION
CAN HELP.
Animations can help you present information in a timed,
organized fashion, moving text or images on the screen.
Highlight the specific slide material you want animated.
Choose “Animations” from the tabs across the top of your window.
Choose “custom animation”.
Do you want to add, take
away or emphasize material?
Select your effect options.
You can set the effects to
happen after a short
delay, when the mouse is
clicked, or repetitively
throughout the slide’s
appearance.

12. WARNING
 Don’t be distracting: Powerpoint has lots of
options to make your text shrink, spin, or sparkle.
Remember your audience has to focus on the
material – NOT the lightshow on the screen!
 Don’t go overboard: too many animations, one at
a time or simultaneously, can make a slide look
messy and distract from the real information.
 Be consistent with the animation that you use: for
example, adding new lines of text in a list should
use the same type of animation each time.

13. THOUGHTFUL SLIDE DESIGN:
FONT
 Use different-sized fonts for main points and
secondary points, but don’t vary them too much.
 This font is 24-point, the bold font above is 28-point,
and the title font above that is 36-point.
 Use a standard, easy-to-read font like this Century
Schoolbook, Times New Roman or Arial.
Even if you aren’t using animation, there
are other considerations when designing
your slides.

14. THOUGHTFUL DESIGN: FONTS
CONT’D
 Consider whether your slides will be seen only on a
computer screen, or in a large room: 18-pt font is
fine for close, individual viewing, but 24 is better on
a big screen. Giant titles are seldom necessary.
 Use capitals only when necessary. STRINGS OF ALL
CAPS ARE DIFFICULT TO READ AND, AS IN EMAIL,
GIVE THE SENSE OF SHOUTING AT YOUR
VIEWER.
 Specialty fonts can be difficult to read, smaller than usual,
and may add tone where you don’t want it.
Choose wisely and be consistent.

15. THOUGHTFUL SLIDE DESIGN:
COLOUR
There are two main considerations for colour:
slide background and font.
 Choose a pale or neutral background, and stick
with it. This ensures most of your audience will be able to
read your text easily, no matter the quality of their eyesight or
room lighting.
 Choosing “Design” from the menu tabs will provide a whole
range of possible colours and pre-set templates you can use and
modify.
 Choose a font colour that contrasts sharply with
the background. The best examples are black, dark blue or
dark grey font on a pale background.
 Use other colours sparingly, for titles or emphasis.

16. THOUGHTFUL SLIDE DESIGN:
COLOUR CONT’D
 Using a font colour that does not contrast with the
background colour is hard to read
 Using colour for decoration is distracting and
annoying.
 Using a different colour for each point is unnecessary
 Using a different colour for secondary points is also
unnecessary
 Trying to be too creative can be bad
See how annoying it is? Now
imagine a whole show like
that.

17. THOUGHTFUL SLIDE DESIGN:
BACKGROUNDS
 Avoid backgrounds that are distracting or difficult
to read from
 Be consistent with the background that you use: if you
want a different type for title slides or section breaks,
consider a slight variation on the design you already
have, not something completely different.
 Note that if you are doing a group presentation,
some planning & consensus is needed early on!

18. THOUGHTFUL SLIDE DESIGN: VISUAL
ADD-INS
Adding pictures, clip art or other visual aids
can make your slides more interesting and
break up big blocks of text.
 Be careful with placement of visual elements: do
they crowd the screen, or make it confusing to read?
 Choose your visuals carefully: cartoons may make
your presentation seem less professional, but graphs
can give lots of information in a small space. Photos
should be appropriate and clear.
If you take a visual from a source other than
Clip Art, you should give credit!

19. DESIGN: ADDING SCREEN
CAPTURES
A “screen capture” (a photo of what is shown on a
computer screen) can be a useful way to talk about
a website or illustrate a description.
1. Have your slide show open to the appropriate slide, but minimized
or otherwise hidden.
2. Open the website or program you’re going to ‘capture’ and let it fill
your screen.
3. Once you have what you need to see, press ALT + PRT SCR
(print screen – usually found in an upper corner of your keyboard).
4. Return to your slide show and the appropriate slide, and PASTE,
using either a shortcut, icon or right click menu.
5. Your screen capture should appear, but may need to be resized
by clicking and dragging the corners of the image.

20. FINISHING TOUCHES:
SPELLING AND GRAMMAR
 Always, always proofread your slides for:
 speling mistakes
 the use of of repeated words
 grammatical errors you might had make
 Use the spell-check feature on Powerpoint.
 If you know you have difficulties in this area, be
sure to have someone else check your
presentation!
Yes, these are
deliberate errors.

21. CONCLUSION
 Use an effective and strong closing
 Your audience is likely to remember your last words. Don’t
say “Um… I guess we’re done.”
 Use a concluding slide to:
 Summarize the main points of your presentation
 Suggest future avenues of research
Note: you may add a final slide that provides reference listings
for outside sources you may have cited.
Don’t forget to ask for questions, if required.