Using PowerPoint to Design Effective Presentations
What You’ll Learn
 Planning Content
 Getting Started with Design
 Displaying Text
 Displaying Graphics
 Animating
 Presenting

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Planning Content for Talks
PART 1:
-List possible audience questions
-Plan your aim(s) upfront
-Choose the “NEWS” about topic
-Include significance
-Keep background relevant
PART 2:
-Explain methods when appropriate
-Related to the “news” (main point)?
-Necessary to understand talk?
-Explain (don’t just show) data
-Plan a conclusion
-Preview future work

Planning Content
-Remember what it was like not to know
-Talk to prospective audience members or imagine them - list their questions
-Organize information in chunks, going from what they know to what they don’t
-Include topic’s significance
-Introduction:  Set Mental “Hooks” and preview the content
-Tie new info to previous studies or relevant events - motivate !!
-Organize from listeners’ point of view
-Principle is “GIVEN to NEW”
-Preview future work

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Getting Started: Tips
-Create a slide show with storyboards, not a script

Use the slide show...
-to select important topics and issues
-to organize content
-to create a hierarchy

Getting Started: Design
-Set up “Slide Master”
-Design the “look” of your slide show
-Choose appropriate template
-Select pre-designed, color coordinated presentation templates
-Choose “slide layouts” for slides
-Select from 12 “master slide styles” under “FORMAT” menu to build your show

Set up “Slide Master”: Your Turn
To set up a “Slide Master” of your own:
-Go to “Format”
-Select “Background”
-Make changes in color bar:
 =Colors
 =Fill effects
 =Textures

Project a Clear Font
Serif: easy to read in printed documents
Times New Roman, Palatino, Verdana
Sans serif: easy to see projected across the room
Arial, Helvetica, Geneva

Fonts: Your Turn
Change the font style of this sentence from Arial to Palatino
To do so…
-Highlight the sentence by dragging your cursor across it
-Select “format” and then “font”
-Select “Palatino” from the pull-down menu

Templates: Your Turn
To select a template, follow these steps:
-Go to “format”
-Select “apply design template” (“show preview” allows you to examine templates)
-Select “ok”

Create New Slides: Your Turn
To create a new slide, choose from 12 pre-designed slide formats

To examine the 12 formats…
-Go to “Insert” and then “New Slide”
-Select one design, click “OK”

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Displaying Text
Your audience...
-Skims each slide
-Looks for critical points, not details
-Needs help reading/seeing text

So you . . .
-Use only essential info
-Guide their eyes with hierarchy, color
-Use big, legible fonts and framing blank space

-Use bullets
-Use short phrases
-Use grammatical parallelism

Use Bullets: Tips
-Bullets help audience skim the slide
-Bullets help audience see relationships between information points

To use bullets…
-Select the “bulleted list” or “two-column list” slide (from the 12 pre-designed slide formats)
-Type a phrase then hit “return”
-Type a second phrase, hit “return” then hit “tab”
-OR use “promote” or “demote” arrows at top to create a bulleted hierarchy

-Go to “format” and then “bullet”
-Select the style, color, and size of the bullets you’ll use
-OR highlight text you wish to bullet and select the bullet button at top

Use Parallelism
-Make text easy for your audience to skim by creating phrases / sentences that are grammatically parallel
-Create parallel text by making items in a list the same grammatical form

Grammatical Parallelism
Not Parallel:
Criteria to Assess Alarm System
-Price
-Effectiveness
-How easily the alarm could be installed

Parallel:
Criteria to Assess Alarm System
-Price
-Effectiveness
-Ease of installation

-Make the following list of sub-points parallel:
-Reliable data collection relies upon:
 =Consistent use of techniques (pipetting, making solutions)
 =Correctly calibrated equipment, such as balances and pipettors
 =Researcher bias is minimized (expecting data to fit model; conflict of interest)

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Displaying Visuals
-Select visuals purposefully
What visuals illustrate a point? Make a claim? Help to prove an argument?
-Design easy-to-read visuals
Are the visuals easy to read by all members of your audience?
-Draw attention to aspects of visuals
How will you draw attention to certain features of the visual?

-Insert needed visuals
-Use color
-Resize appropriately
-Draw attention


Insert Visuals
Insert images using “Insert”  then “picture”
Decide whether the image you wish to insert is “clip art” or from a “file” (on disk or on hard drive)


Choose Color Carefully

Resize Images: How to . . .
Click on the visual you wish to resize
Go to “format” and then “object” or “autoshape”
Select “size”
Change size and scale
OR simply click and
    drag the corners of the image

Simplify and Draw Attention

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Animating
-Custom animation allows you to animate text, visuals, or line work
-Custom animation should be used purposefully (and sparingly!)
Animating should help audience comprehend your message
Don’t animate solely for aesthetic purposes

Animation: Your Turn
Design slide with grouped items
Go to “slide show” and select “animation” and “custom”
Select item(s) to animate
Choose
-Animation method (appear, fly in)
-Sound
-After effects (dim)

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Presenting

Delivery
-Adapt to Physical, Cultural Environment
-Stance
 =Body language
 =Handling notes
-Gestures
-Eye contact
-Voice quality
 =Volume
 =Inflection
 =Pace

Handling questions
LISTEN
Repeat or rephrase
Watch body language
Don’t bluff

Prepare & practice!