As a student, you’ve probably seen more than a few multimedia presentations. You’ve probably also become far too familiar with how easily these kinds of presentations can go badly. If so, you’re not alone. Search the Web for phrases such as death by PowerPoint and PowerPoint boredom, and you’ll find thousands of pages that discuss — often quite humorously — efforts to ban the use of programs such as PowerPoint and Keynote.

Fortunately, PowerPoint boredom is a curable condition. Whether you are speaking in front of a group, presenting a recorded talk online, or simply sharing a set of slides, you can create multimedia presentations that engage your audience and might even bring them around to your point of view. With care and planning, you can use multimedia presentation tools to illustrate points using more than spoken words alone, allowing your audience to follow your argument more easily and better understand complex ideas.