Designing and Performing Writing

Creating a presentation

Page contents:

Presentation software
Slide design choices
Words and images on slides

Think of your visuals not as add-ons but as a major means of getting your points across. Many speakers use slides created in presentation software to help keep themselves on track and to guide the audience. In addition, posters, flip charts, chalkboards, or interactive whiteboards can also help you make strong visual statements.

Presentation software

Presentation software such as PowerPoint or Prezi allows you to prepare slides you want to display and even to enhance the images with sound. PowerPoint presentations move in a linear fashion from beginning to end, while Prezi software allows presenters to move in more circular paths (and to show the circling in the slides).

To choose software for a presentation, consider what the software allows you to do and how much time you will need to learn to use it effectively—and make sure that the equipment you need for the software you choose will be available.

Slide design choices

Keep simple design principles in mind and follow these guidelines:

Make sure any text you show is big enough to read, and create a clear contrast between text or illustration and background. In general, light backgrounds work better in a darkened room, and dark backgrounds in a lighted one.
Be careful not to depend too heavily on slide templates. The choices of color, font, and layout offered by such templates may not always match your goals or fit with your topic.
Choose visuals that will reproduce sharply, and make sure they are large enough to be clearly visible.
Make sure that video clips will be large enough to be seen easily and that sound plays clearly and audibly.

Words and images on slides

Make sure your slides engage and help your listeners rather than distract them from your message, and make sure that what you say and what you show work together. Although you may be tempted to display a lot of information on your slides, think carefully about whether each slide’s contents are appropriate for a presentation. For instance, if you feel you need to include more than fifty words of text on a slide (or more than three or four brief bullet points), you may be trying to use slides to convey information that would make more sense in a report.

As you plan your slides, pay attention to these tips from expert presenters:

Audiences can’t read and listen to you at the same time, so make the slides support what you are saying as clearly and visually as possible. Just one or two words—or a visual without words—may back up what you are saying more effectively than a list of bullet points.
Avoid reading from your slides. Audience members can read faster than you can talk, and you are guaranteed to bore them with this technique. Be familiar enough with your material that you don’t have to rely on your slides to know what comes next.
Although there are no firm rules about how many slides you should use or how long each slide should be made visible, plan length and timing with your audience’s needs and your purpose in mind.

Considering disabilities: Accessible presentations

Video Prompt: You want them to hear you