What does it take to have a good power point presentation?
Other than having accurate key points in power point slides, document design is also important in conducting a good presentation. Good document design will enable good communication of information to the audience efficiently. Most importantly, it will increase interest of readers towards the presentation (Reep, 2006). We definitely do not want any audience dozing off during your presentation.
So, what exactly is a good document design?
Image 1
A presentation tip from Sieber (2009), KISS, which represents Keep It Straight and Simple. She also mentioned that ‘your slides are only there to support, not to replace your talk’. Therefore, there should be only keywords on the slides instead of long sentences. Referring to Image 1, there is an excessive amount of words on the slide. Instead of including the definitions and the summary of the article, it should be explained during the presentation.
Image 2
In Image 2, the headings is not in bold or in a different colour as the rest of the text. Reep (2006, p.160) also mentioned that the usage of boldface type is to add emphasize on headings, specific words or important key terms. Thus, the sub heading found on Image 2 should be a different typeface as the rest of the text included.
Image 3
According to Petelin (1996, p.254), edges and borders of text and images in slides should always be aligned. As seen in Image3, the margin of the slide is not similar to Image1 and Image 2. Margins of every power point slide should be the same. On top of that, Gallian (2005, p.25) also mentioned in one of his article that we should leave sufficient margins on all four sides. Hence, equal and ample margins should be left on the slide shown in Image3.
References:
- Gallian, JA 2005, Advice on Giving a Good Powerpoint Presentation, Math Horizons, University of Minnesota Duluth, viewed 1st April 2011, <http://www.d.umn.edu/~jgallian/goodPPtalk.pdf>
- Putnis, P & Peterlin, R 1996, Writing to communicate, in Professional communication: principles and applications, ch. 7, pp. 223-263.
- Reep, DC 2006, Document Design, in Technical Writing, ch. 6, 6th edn, pp. 133-172.
- Sieber, T 2009, 10 Powerpoint Tips of Preparing A Professional Presentation, viewed 1st April 2011, <http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-tips-for-preparing-a-professional-presentation/>
