PowerPoint Tips

    Reading through these links reminded me of several poorly assembled PowerPoint presentations that I viewed(and co-created...) in high school. In my opinion, creating clean, simple, and to the point slides can be difficult because there are just so many cool features...who wouldn't want to try them all? 

   Needless to say, I found the tips that encouraged minimalism to be the most helpful.  "Top Ten Slide Tips" warns against creating slides that have long sentences or too many bullet points.  It makes clear that slides should only contain brief phrases or words that summarize the speaker's points.  Charts, graphs, and tables should also be simple and easy to interpret quickly; too many labels or colors are confusing to the eye and many viewers will simply give up before trying to decode the information.  Lastly, the "Top Ten" suggests that that the presenter review the order of his slides to make sure the progression has a logical flow. 

   The "Pedagogical Review of PowerPoint" also made several recommendations.  It says that presenters should be careful not to "read off" their slides, but instead they should use their own notes as supplementary information.  Appropriate use of images is also mentioned; for example, a presentation over a professional matter should have realistic images or photos instead of cartoon-like clip art.  

   Over all, I found these tips to be very helpful!