1. USE A THEME WITH COLORS AND DESIGN WITHOUT BEING
DISTRACTING.
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Black and White and similar
bland color schemes tend to be boring. They have no zip. |
While this may look cool,
it is so distracting, you won’t notice the bulleted
information. |
This is about right. It has
some color and at the same time, you’ll pay attention to the information
presented. |
Want some cool themes?
2. USE LARGE TEXT, COLORED OPPOSITE
FROM THE BACKGROUND.
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Text that is near the same
color as the background is hard to read. |
Light text on dark background
works well. So does dark text on light background. |
Want text over a picture?
Test it out. Here you can see mixed results. Consider moving the picture. |
3. BULLETS SHOULD BE ONE LINE OF
TEXT—MAX OF TWO LINES.
Otherwise,
your audience starts reading and does not pay attention to you.
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This PowerPoint slide is for
reading—not speaking. It will overload the audience; the audience will read
and not pay attention to the speaker speaking. Not good. |
This is great. The focus
will be on the speaker as the speaker explains the bullets. |
4. BULLETS SHOULD APPEAR ONE AT A
TIME.
Pictures should appear ONE at a time also.
Otherwise,
it causes distraction as the audience reads ahead of what the speaker is saying.
AND WHEN THE BULLET APPEARS:
5. YOU SHOULD SAY
EXACTLY WHAT APPEARS ON SCREEN.
Not what is going to appear; Not
things that are not on screen.
After you say what the bullet
says, you should explain it. Look at the examples below.
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When this bullet appears,
the Speaker would say: “Keep your bullets short. This keeps the
audience from being overwhelmed with information and reading while you speak.” |
When this bullet appears,
the Speaker would say: “And, this keeps the focus on the speaker.
Because the audience is just momentarily looking at a few words, they can
concentrate on the speaker.” |
When this bullet appears,
the Speaker would say: “That happens because the speaker explains the
bullets—orally. So, the audience needs to listen to the speaker.” |
HOW TO MAKE YOUR BULLETS APPEAR ONE
AT A TIME IN POWERPOINT 2003
You can use other ways to make the
bullets appear but most of them are irritating.
6. YES—HAVE PICTURES! VIDEOS ARE
COOL TOO.
Otherwise,
the Powerpoint is too texty
and gets boring.

Suggestion: Have a picture on
almost every slide.
HOW TO MAKE PICTURES APPEAR ONE AT A
TIME IN POWERPOINT 2003
You can use other ways to make the pictures
appear but most of them are irritating.
What if the pictures or bullets
don’t appear in the right order? You need to order them on the right side of
the screen. Need help? See your Professor.
Have
a frame and want your bullets/pictures to appear one at a time? If
you select "appear" on the animation schemes and then select apply to
all slides, it will mess up the custom animation of the other slides. In order
to avoid this problem, you need to inactivate the "appear" on the
slide you want to customize. After you do this, you can customize the order of
appearance on that specific slide. Make sure not to select "appear"
for all slides if you have already done custom animation- it will deactivate
it.
7. CITING AN EXPERT? Use a bullet for his/her name and qualifications. Then,
the next bullet should state what he/she said.
You would say something
like “Edward Miller, John Hopkins
Medicine Chief Executive Officer, has noted that Stem Cell Research Benefits
include . . .” (Typically, you would have bullets for what the benefits are) |
8. INSERTING A
COMMENT/THOUGHT Want to write a comment to yourself
or to your professor but don’t want viewers to see? At the top of the
PowerPoint Screen, Click Insert, Comment. (the yellow note below).
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9. USE THE POWERPOINT
THROUGHOUT—INCLUDING THE INTRO AND CONCLUSION.
FOR THE INTRO—HAVE A TITLE SLIDE AND
THEN AN ATTENTION GETTER SLIDE
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Here is the first slide—you
do not use it in your presentation; it is just there like a cover page for a
paper. |
This is the second slide
but the first one you would actually use in the presentation—THE ATTENTION
GETTER SLIDE. Here, the speaker asks “What
makes a flamingo pink? What turns
a flamingo from white (the white flamingo picture appears
) to pink? (the pink
flamingos picture appear). The speaker pauses and looks for an answer from
the audience. Then, up pops the picture of the shrimp. “Eating shrimp is the answer. Shrimp give flamingos the pink
pigment.” |
FOR THE CONCLUSION—HAVE A BLANK
SLIDE AND THEN A BIBLIOGRAPHY SLIDE
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End with a blank slide so
that your audience sees it and is not distracted while you answer questions. |
After the blank slide,
include a bibliography for your professor and for anyone else receiving your
PowerPoint who might want to seek more information. See your RFS Public
Speaking Booklet for how to do your citations. |