Just preparing my first phd powerpoint presentation for staff and students. Any tips? I take it animations and sound effects don't go down too well....:$

Woops - double posted this thread. Sorry!

I try and keep presentations very simple i.e. 4 bullet points per slide, each with 1 or 2 'reminder' words. This a) stops people reading ahead and getting bored b) is easy on the eye - not too much info and c) most importantly, makes you look super intelligent while you rattle off facts around the key points.
E.g. if I were to do a slide on Safaris I would have a slide which was

Cheetah
Lion
Zebra
Mongoose

And then say "cheetahs have big lungs and run REALLY fast", rather than writing that down on the actual slide.

AAHHHH!!!

Avoid animations and sound effects at all costs unless it's absolutely essential!! I had a lecturer who detested when words went swooshing onto the screen and interrogated presenters afterwards just to exact revenge!
Just keep it simple, not too many words, remember the rule of 7's - never more than 7 points on a slide, and never more than 7 words to a line. Out up enough info for people to keep track of what you're talking about but not enough that they either don't hear a word you're saying cos they read the slide or switch off completely. Use images if possible, pictures of stuff you're talking about. And don;t read it off a sheet of paper!

Good luck!

I have to say I recently went to a fantastic conference presentation where the whole thing was about a huge metaphor - which was a picture of a man in a car and when the bloke talked about what he thought all the moderators were etc in the model, the car hit speed bumps/traffic lights etc. It was really good!

I went to a conference recently where one of the best talks the guy hada very few slide, but what he did do was start with a simple slide with hardly anything on it, then gradually build up the slide adding things as he talked about them, showing how they all linked together.

My supervisor suggested trying to get a pictre on every slide (nothing worse than being faced with piles and piles of text, where the speaker jst reads what's on there.

I use quite some animations. I think it can be ok so long as it's done for emphasis rather than for the sake of it.

I also try and make sure the text is the same size on every slide. Powerpoint automatically adjusts depending how much is on the screen. I think it looks better to have continuity.

Depends on your subject - I'm in Geography and we love pictures (and maps)

I presented at an international conference in April & I was the only one who didn't hav eloads of pictures (because my presentation was more conceptual).

What I hate though is the crappy microsoft clipart (bloke with light bulb on head etc) - if you are using images make sure they are good ones.

(Oh and make sure your colour scheme works on big screen projection - I presented at our PhD student day and my colour scheme which looked great on my computer at home looked crap - in fact I got more comments (p155 taking) about that than the content)