Does anyone have any tips about powerpoint presentations? I've seen the basic stuff like don't read your slides, don't use ridiculous sound effects and comic sans etc etc but I was wondering if anyone had any further personal experiences, good or bad?

I'm in English Studies and it's not something people tend to use that often at conferences in my discipline, but I've got to get something together at short notice for a paper next week (not my fault!) and was thinking of doing something more like an animated poster than a traditional slides-as-summary thing. Any thoughts or hilarious powerpoint-related anecdotes?

Well the best advice I could give from experience is to make sure your slides aren't a)too busy as people will get lost or b) too wordy as chances are people wont read the whole slide and get bored.

Keep your points brief and to the point.. just use them as visual prompts for yourself to then expand on when you are talking.

Also if possible have a practice with your slides on a big screen/projector before your meeting as text and colours generally will always look different than how they look on your computer monitor.

The idea about trying them on a projector is a good one: I'll see if I can sort this in my dept this week. I'm currently trimming pictures from the Sistine Chapel to use as images!

I read somewhere, somewhen, that someone had done a study into audience responses to PowerPoint presentations. The principle conclusion seemed to be that the audience is not able to read the slides at the same time as listening to the speaker. It is thus more effective to have something different on the slides to what you are saying - an illustration or diagram. I'm not sure how well this goes with an English studies presentation?

The other tip which I treasure regarding presentations is to finish before the time limit.

Best of luck

ejc x

I'm thinking I'll probably only have pictures to illustrate what I'm saying, so no text at all. I kind of hate powerpoint usually but I think it'll be fun for this.

Make sure you use the master slide set up. sometimes you get to a place and find that the background colour you have chosen doesn't show up well on their system, master slides mean you can change the whole lot in one go. With pics make sure they are visible too the same happens to them sometimes. check that the program you used is compatable with the one they have on offer,it should be, but you never know. I always take stuff on a memory stick, and on a CD/DVD I've never had to use the latter, but I know some people who have. I also tend to just have things appear, not zipping in from the side or the top or any of the other fancy methods available as they just tend to distract fromt he content, well they distract me anyway!

Dont use anything smaller than a 24 font as you wont see it on the big screen.

Keep it simple nothing fancy like words flying in I have always been told to show the whole slide and go through the points

Keep colours simple as they can distract from the presintation or make it difficult to read.

Practice timings for presintations

Turn up early to make sure everything works and is compatable (bitter experiance)

Contrary to Johnh, I think 18 pt. is the standard minimum for powerpoint presentations, but I would err towards the 24 pt. to be on the safe side.

Content-wise, the best thing you could go for is a mixture of text and pictures (not necessarily on the same slide!) If it's all one or all the other, audience interest levels will begine to wane.

Short, snappy text, too - long sentences are a huge no-no.

Other than that, everyone else seems to have picked up the best points!

In my experience of other's presentations, anything that is too technical (eg. equations) are really off-putting. Even to a very technical audience that are probably familiar with such technical details, they can easily stop concentrating.

If you get a change to try the projector, pay particular attention to any graphs and diagrams, and see what they look like from the furthest point in the room. I thought that I had made all mine massively chunky, but they were still only just about visible, and many other people's were not visible at all.
If you are super-organised you could print the presentation onto ohp slides just in case the projector doesn't work.

If you can - don't use PowerPoint at all. Lots of speakers use it as a crutch to keep attention off them and on the screen. I'm not brave enough to go without PowerPoint, but if you are a confident presenter try it without.

Otherwise, keep the PPT slides very basic. Also have a back-up and some handouts, at one conference the organisers lost my presentation (grrr) and I had to wing it without PPT. If you use PPT 2007, make a compatible version so it works on any system.

If you like to move about a room or stage, use one of those fancy wireless clickers to change your slides.

Plain and simple .. remember the slides are a guide for you !

use the powerpoint templates (some are in the programme itself, but for even more choice go to the microsoft powerpoint website).

they are professionally-designed and will help your presentations look professional too. plus they help you to not overdo words and special effects

i worked as a graphic designer for 10 years before going into science and even i use the templates all the time!

I gave my paper today and the powerpoint went surprisingly smoothly! I didn't have hardly any text on the slides: it was mostly images which worked as diagrams to explain my points. Thanks so much for all the useful tips, guys.

I have written a free e-booklet on presentations.
With many hints. I think they are very, very practical.
My PhD students love them. My senior colleagues hate them,
because it exposes them as bad presenters.
You do not need to read the hints in any specific order.
If you Google on "StringCat" you will find it.
The guide is also published as a real book (publication date May 13, 2008). Just Google on sciencesurvivalblog for information.


Greetings
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