Notes for Making Good PowerPoint Presentations in the Surendranath Group:
-If doing a literature review: try to focus on the driving forces in the field. What are the main principles / assumptions of the field, and how are they driving the current direction of research? What ideas might be missing? What would you focus on, if you were joining the field?
-If doing a research presentation: think about the story you're trying to tell. What is really special, and how can you highlight that? Be careful about ideas that might be personally meaningful to you (i.e. lots of hard work or setup challenges) that might not be relevant to the overall story you need to tell.
In either case, put on the hat of an outsider. How would someone who ISN'T already heavily involved in your specific line of research (or, for that matter, someone who isn't an electrochemist!) perceive it?
-Good housekeeping checklist for PowerPoint slides:
Check your font for a good size. Could a nearly-blind person still read them?
Do I have excessive white space? If so, consider making the things on the page bigger.
Put the names of authors on papers cited in the margins (even if there are a lot).
Double check for typos even if you think you did everything right the first time.
If you put many complex elements on a graph, you need to be planning to explain it. Don't leave a lot of extraneous details that you aren't planning to talk about.
Keep all graph labels consistent in formatting. (For instance, use "/" to separate all labels: "time / s")
Don't put numerical tables in PowerPoints if there's ANY reasonable way to avoid doing so or present it as a graph instead
You CAN put images in the "Conclusions" page!