Suggestions for Creating PowerPoints (and other visual presentations)

CONTENT

• Focus on content before format or animation
• Check the rubric to make sure that you are hitting all the points required in this project
• Make sure that the organization of your slides is clear and well planned out, this will end up being the order of your presentation, so check that is has a logical flow

FORMAT

• Make sure your audience can read your text - i.e. font size should be greater than 32, often 40-80 is ideal
• Make sure that you audience can read your material - do not use colors for your fonts that are too similar to the background colors, it is better to pick high contrast colors
• Try to make your slides image-centered rather than text-centered, people would rather look at a picture than read what you are saying
• Your writing on the slides does not have to be in the form of a sentence, you can use bullets
• You should have a title slide (with the names of the authors) and a concluding slide and if applicable a slide listing sources

PRESENTATION

• Think about your presentation when your create your powerpoint - your presentation should not be read from the screen, and ideally you are saying more than what is written on the screen - so try to summarize your main points in your text, not include all the pertinent details
• Do try to include relevant images for each of your slides (or most of them at least)
• Make sure you know what you are talking about as you will need to answer questions
• Proofread your presentations - typos will detract from it