MAKING POWERPOINT SLIDES

The DOs and DONTs of making PowerPoints

Tips to be Covered

Outlines Slide Structure Fonts, Color, & Background Pictures and Images Spelling and Grammar Final Notes

Outline

Make your 1st or 2nd slide a brief outline of your presentation

Ex:

previous slide

Follow the order of your outline for the rest of the presentation Only place main points on the outline slide
Ex:

Use the titles of each slide as main points

Slide Structure Good

Write in bullet-point form, not long sentences Try not to exceed 4-5 points per slide Avoid wordiness: use key words and phrases instead

Slide Structure - Bad

This page contains too many words for a presentation slide, so it looks like a nasty wall of text. Yuck! It is not written in bullet-point form, making it difficult for your audience to look at and read. Although there are the same number of points on this slide as the previous slide, it looks much more complicated (and boring). In short, your audience will spend too much time trying to read this paragraph.

Fonts - Good

Use standard fonts like Times New Roman or Arial Use different size fonts for main points and secondary points (PowerPoint does this automatically)
This

font is 26-point, the main point font is 29-point, and the title font is 44-point

Fonts - Bad

If you use a small font, your audience will strain their eyes.

CAPITALIZE ONLY WHEN NECESSARY. IT IS DIFFICULT TO READ AND SEEMS LIKE YOURE SHOUTING. AAARRRGGGHHHH!! Dont use a complicated font or one that is difficult to read

clearly.

Color - Good

Use a color of font that contrasts sharply with the background

Ex:

Black or dark font on white background, or light font on a dark background

Use color to emphasize a point

But

only use this occasionally

Color - Bad

Using a font color that does not contrast with the background color is hard to read Using color for decoration is distracting and annoying. Using a different color for each point is unnecessary Trying to be creative with color can also be bad

Background - Good

Use backgrounds and slide designs that are attractive, simple, and dont mess up your font Use the same background consistently throughout your presentation

Background Bad

Avoid backgrounds that are distracting or difficult to read from Always be consistent with the background that you use

Pictures and Images - Good

Try to use pictures, clip art, or graphs rather than just words
A Relevant Graph
Quality and appeal of the presentation 10 8 6 4 2 0 Several relevant images No images

Pictures and Images - Bad

Dont be excessive with pictures Make sure the pictures have something to do with your presentation

Spelling and Grammar

Proof your slides for:

speling

mistakes the use of of repeated words grammatical errors you might have make

Final Notes

Have fun and be creative! Make sure to display, or provide a link to, the advertisement that you are critiquing. Save your presentation as a .PPT or .PPTX file. Dont worry about animations, this wont be presented. Make sure to include everything required of the assignment.