Powerpoint Tips

Have to give a powerpoint presentation?
Here's some tips...

1. Powerpoint should support your presentation, not you supporting your powerpoint. What that means is that if everyone is paying so much attention to the powerpoint and not you, that doesn't work well.
2. You should have no more than 5 short bullet points per slide. More than that makes the slide to busy and too hard too digest.
3. You shouldn't turn your back and then just read the slide. Your powerpoint should be supportive of your talk, not you just reading it.
4. A tip is to angle your laptop so that you can see it as you talk. That way you can glance at that to ensure that it has moved to the next slide.
5. Buy a presentation clicker. A decent one can be found around 50 bucks and its a smoother transition for your talk then you stopping what you are saying, walking back to your laptop, clicking on the mouse/pad to move to the next slide, looking up to see that its moved and then resuming your talk.
6. Be creative, but not too creative. Sometimes a comic can break the ice and make a point. But the comic should be somewhat relevant and appropriate. Powerpoints that have a lot of flash, whistles, noise, transitions, scrolling information can be distracting. A little is ok, but again shouldn't distract from you.
7. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. One, because your presentation will just be smoother, but also because as you rehearse, you may feel the flow is choppy or not good, so you may reorganize or adjust the slides to ensure a more comfortable flow to your talk. And a more comfortable flow ensures a more comfortable speaker. And that's one of the most important things for any speaker to be!

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