Presentation Skills: PowerPoint

• The lecture is on presentation skills, focusing on effective PowerPoint use.
• Steps to giving a presentation include planning, preparing, practicing, and presenting.

Preparing Presentation Content

• Select proper backgrounds that are not too fussy.
• Need more than just spell checks, beware of spelling mistakes.
• Slides should be simple by maximizing visibility, choosing the right color and font, and using less text.
• Visual aids should be used effectively, but be wary of videos.
• Avoid overwhelming content with technological gymnastics.

Planning Presentation Content

• Backgrounds shouldn’t be too fussy.
• Spelling mistakes need more than spell checks.
• Slides should be simple by maximizing visibility, choosing colors and fonts wisely, and keeping text minimal.
• Visual aids are important when used effectively.
• Animations should be reduced to avoid "technological gymnastics."

Selecting Proper Backgrounds

• PowerPoint pitfalls include too much text, small font size, overused clip art/templates, and excessive animations is familiar.
• Too much text onscreen can deter people from engaging with the presentation.
• The slides should support the presenter, not distract from them.
• Too many bullet points can make the information dull.

Spelling Mistakes

• Spelling mistakes are unacceptable, reflecting carelessness and unprofessionalism; review slides carefully and use PowerPoint's spell checker.

Slide Simplicity

• Keep slides simple to maximize visibility with appropriate colors, fonts, and minimal text.

Maximizing Visibility

• Minimum font sizes include 40 point for titles and 20 point for bulleted lists using Arial 24 with 1-line spacing, Arial 24 with 1.5 line spacing, or Times New Roman 24 (1.5 line spacing.
• Use high contrast with a dark background and light letters, or a light background with dark letters.
• Effective color combinations for projection include white/yellow on blue, but avoid black on blue or red on green.

Color Usage

• Blue is a calming, conservative, and common choice for backgrounds.
• Blue can slow breathing and pulse rates, working well in relaxed environments with lights on to promote interaction.
• Green stimulates interaction, putting people at ease, and is used in PowerPoint for trainers/educators.
• Use red carefully because it is influential but carries negative cultural associations and is ideal for conveying passion or discussing competition .
• Black is strong, definite, and works well in relaxed environments with lights on to promote interaction.
• Yellow can cause frustration/anger; people are more likely to lose their temper in yellow spaces.

Font Choice

• Fonts send subtle messages, pick font styles intentionally.
• Use the same font set throughout the presentation, stick to two complementary fonts.
• Serif fonts (e.g., Times New Roman) were designed for documents with lots of text.
• Sans-serif fonts (e.g., Arial, Helvetica) are best for PowerPoint.
• Choose fonts that are readable from the back of the room.

Text Usage

• Verbose slides filled with text should be avoided and are better suited for papers/journals.
• Presentations should avoid being attention-killers and difficult to follow.

Bullet Points

• Long lists can distract the audience.
• The number of bullets per slide should be limited to six.
• Bullets should be one-two lines long.
• Bullet points cue the audience into what the presenter will say.
• Cues act as a brief preview to give the audience a framework for the presentation.

Guidelines for text

• Characteristics of a good presentation include achieving objectives, relevance to the audience, organization, smooth delivery, high-quality visual aids, and practice.
• A good presentation achieves its objectives, is relevant, well-organized, smooth, uses quality aids, fits time frame, and practiced.
• Text guidelines include using 4-6 lines per slide, phrases (not full sentences), upper/lower case for readability, consistent spacing, and 40 characters per line.
• Avoid all caps because they are hard to read and deny italics for emphasis.
• Use italics for quotes, highlighted ideas, and titles.

Visual Aids

• Visual aids save time, add interest, improve understanding/retention, and cater to different learning styles.
• Benefits of audiovisual aids include multi-sense learning, introducing topics, summarizing ideas, and clarifying complex ideas.
• Drawbacks include being boring, difficult to coordinate, time-consuming, and causing a false sense of mastery.
• Verbal only recall is 70% after 3 hours and 10% after 3 days.
• Visual only recall is 72% after 3 hours and 20% after 3 days.
• Verbal and visual recall is 85% after 3 hours and 65% after 3 days.

Images

• One image per slide, or two to contrast.
• Choose higher resolution images.
• Avoid enlarging small images or distorting images.
• Use arrows to point and animate the image.
• Source should be credited with the author, book/article/website, date, URL.

Technological Gymnastics

• Never let the message be overwhelmed by technological gymnastics.
• Avoid distracting animations, enhance rather than distract.
• Avoid killing time.
• Be subtle and avoid animation schemes.
• Use custom animation only and one transition.

Equations

• Refrain from reading equations directly.
• Instead, offer commentary and insight into their purpose.

File Size

• File sizes should be appropriate in order to post on a server/Blackboard.
• Keep sizes less than 2MB when possible and compress all images.
• Use web format at 96 DPI.

Preparation Tips For Presentation

• Prioritize what to say due to time constraints.
• Focus on what should and should not be said.
• Presentations should consist of an introduction, a middle, and a conclusion.
• The presenter should summarize the introduction, focus on the middle and conclusion, organize argument and support, and finally, revisit the introduction.

Presentation Content

• The introduction should define the what, when, where, and why of the research and state the purpose, scope, and main message.
• Give an outline of the presentation and introduce the problem to be addressed and context .
• The target point in the middle and the conclusion is what the audience should learn or take away.
• It is important to focus on 3-5 points and to prioritize them in order of importance.
• Content should be incremental and concise.
• Make sure your presentation contains relevant information that contributes to your most important point.
• Too many unnecessary details will overshadow what is important.
• Use a storyboard, break up each section with a key point, present concisely, incrementally, and in a logical order.
• Select the most persuasive visual data to support your claims, and revisit the introduction in the conclusion.
• Reinforce the main message; put in context of the "big picture."
• Repetition helps emphasize essential information by clearly presenting it and repeating it in the conclusion.
• Optimize data formats to support any arguments.

Data Formats

• Tables should show relationships, are good for quantitative data comparisons, but can lack impact.
• If a parameter is significantly greater than another, use a bar graph to better represent information.
• Bar charts highlight similarities, contrasts, ranks, proportions, and frequencies.
• Pie charts show composition (proportions/percentages), limit slices to 4-6.
• Pie charts are effective for contrasting slice and pie size, and demonstrate distribution.
• Use the graphics only when using too many words, describing trends or a lot of numerical data, and doing over a comparison of many categories.
• Line graphs depict changes/trends over time.

Giving a Presentation

• Return to the introduction to have a clear end and summarize the main points and material reviewed in the draft.
• The end point must include a brief and simple summary of the main points, reinforce the message, and reference the whole idea.
• Graphs can portray the objective effectively because they allow easier memorization and comprehension of data.

Visual Aids

• Tables should be avoided when possible.
• Use figures that should relate specifically to the title of the data.
• The purpose of tables should be summarized and values should be re-ordered to show increasing and decreasing patterns.
• Figure legends are important and figures should be introduced and explained including their relationship.

Figure Guidelines

• Explain the data on both axes and organize data to clearly relate dependent and independent variables.
• Avoid using symbols, and instead label lines with text..
• Features to be avoided include minor gridlines, small fonts, illogical colors, missing titles, and distracting shading.
• Use professional language to describe changes.

Communication Impact

• How you look accounts for 55% of the impact of communication.
• How you sound make up 38%.
• What you say only makes up 7%.

Learning Objectives

• The most important things to learn are to start in a way to make an impact on the aduience.
• Use visuals to maximum effect.
• Develop your public speaking style and deal effectively with the aduience question

Storytelling

• Presentations include stories.
• Presenters use short, interesting stories.
• Complicated ideas are best explained though stories or examples.
• Stories are memorable and easy to remember for the aduience.
• Stories should have clear beginnings, engaging content, and logical ends.

Hooks

• Establish credibility during the first 60 seconds.
• "Hooks" is a technique for getting audience attention by giving a problem to think about, showing facts, or telling a story.
• Presentation openings could involve unexpected statistics (like Japanese firms' entertainment budget), hypothetical budgets, or energy source reserves.
• Openings could involve the energy source reserves in the world
• Use a rhetorical question that require no answer coming from your listeners.
• Self confidence is built through preparation.
• Give a first impression through the first slides.