This is an outline view for a PowerPoint presentation about Usenet.

The AutoContent Wizard can guide us through creating a new presentation.

As a composing tool (using the Outline View, as given above), PowerPoint offers the following features:

• big headings
• bullet lists
• prompts to keep us on schedule during both presentation and preparation

The Outline View is intended to be a tool for YOU as the presenter. Don't force your audience to follow it.

Advantages to the Presenter

• It's easy to learn.

I've found that most of my students don't need classroom time to become familiar with it. What they need is classroom time dedicated to helping them use it wisely, or to recognize that there are other tools to help engineers get their point across. Like any other computer software, PowerPoint only does what we tell it to, and fast; we have to learn how to do the right things with it on our own.

• It supports multimedia content.

This means we can add images, sounds, and video footage to a presentation. Again, we have to figure out how to organize all the "bells and whistles" on our own. The risk in using this tool is that because it's fast and powerful, we'll be tempted to set aside less time to prepare an argument when it's in PowerPoint than we might do otherwise. Will the multimedia content get the point across for us when we aren't prepared?

What You Can Do

1. Do you NEED PowerPoint in the First Place? Or are you creating a presentation because "you can," or because "everyone else is?" What if you could accomplish your goal with a one- or two-page hardcopy handout instead?
2. Be flexible. Will you be in trouble if someone asks you a question that's answered five slides ahead of where you are now? Will your presentation collapse under its own weight if there's a computer problem?
3. Don't read the slides. There is no need to read what the audience can plainly see for itself, and what you've worked so hard (hopefully) to put together in the first place. Let them absorb the slide information, then add something that's not there. This strategy has the extra advantage of helping you face the audience instead of the screen. :-)
4. Be consistent. In text font, in bullet style, in sentence (or phrase) forms, etc.
5. Be brief. Don't include so much on a single chart that the audience has to work to read it. If you see people in the back row squinting their eyes, you're in trouble.
6. PowerPoint presentations really don't need summaries. If you produce the slides properly, each slide is a kind of summary of its own.
7. Did you know? You can press the "b" key to blank the screen during your presentation. This can help you grab the audience with some other visual display or anecdote.

References

Microsoft Office -- PowerPoint Home Page
Brenner, R. Think Before You PowerPoint." Chaco Canyon Consulting, 02.01.2002.
Lloyd, J. "Rein in PowerPoint Abuse." Orlando Business Journal, 12.17.2001.