Notes

Outline

PowerPoint Slide Presentations A Visual Aid to Accompany Academic Paper Presentations

Dealing with Stress Prepare an organized paper Prepare an easy-to-use outline Check location ahead of time Practice, practice, practice

Presentation Techniques Keep a high profile Do not read your paper Look at audience Occupy the space Use gestures and modulate your voice

Tips for Visual Aid Creation Legibility Simplicity Color What to say versus What’s on the slide

Legibility Avoid ALL CAPS, but if you must, use 24-point type Use 32-point type for caps & lowercase Use a “sans serif” type such as Arial Use Times New Roman for web pages: www.marthabianco.com/Courses/Cities Do not use sans serif with web pages: 1g0lqOI (Arial)   vs   1g0lqOI (Times New Roman)

Improve that Last Slide:  Break It Up! Avoid ALL CAPS IF YOU MUST, USE A 24-POINT TYPE Use 32-point type for caps & lowercase Use a “sans serif” type such as Arial

Isn’t this Better? Use Times New Roman for web pages: www.marthabianco.com/Courses/Cities Do not use sans serif with web pages: 1g0lqOI (Arial)   vs   1g0lqOI (Times New Roman)

Color Limit yourself to 4 colors per slide Contrasting colors best:  light on dark Avoid pastels Use colors only to help the audience to emphasize a trend to symoblize a word (e.g., STOP! )

Bad Examples Contrast is key For printed presentations, dark on white works fine For projected presentations, light on dark works well In all cases, avoid pastels; they are hard to read Keep elements balanced Bulleted items should begin at the left Don’t randomly center items Think about placement of graphics

More Bad Examples Avoid a serif font such as Times Keep web links to 1 line only http://www.marthabianco/Courses/Cities/speaker.html Avoid underling for emphasis

Spell Check! Avoid a serif font such as Times Keep web links to 1 line only http://www.marthabianco/Courses/Cities/speaker.html Avoid underling for emphasis Should be: Avoid underlining for emphasis

Simplicity Round off numbers 4 not 4.32 Substitute symbols for words $3 not three dollars Abbreviate when possible Avg. not average Omit footnotes

Use One-Line Titles Use 6-7 lines per slides Edit long sentences to only 1 line long Limit lines to a maximum of 6-8 words Use only 1 sublevel Bold or highlight for emphasis Use many slides, with less on each side

What’s on the Slide Review performance trends Discuss contributing factors Recommend improvements The purpose of this presentation is to share with you the results of our study on highway safety performance by reviewing performance trends of different highway classifications and identifying the major factors contributing to this performance; finally, we will recommend steps to enhance safety on highway classifications needing improved performance

Not Good The purpose of this presentation is to share with you the results of our study on highway safety performance by Reviewing performance trends of different highway classifications and Identifying the major factors contributing to this performance; finally, We will recommend steps to enhance safety on highway classifications needing improved performance

Also Not Good:  too much text and a busy graphic The purpose of this presentation is to share with you the results of our study on highway safety performance by reviewing performance trends of different highway classifications and identifying the major factors contributing to this performance; finally, we will recommend steps to enhance safety on highway classifications needing improved performance.

Better:  Relevant graphic and bulleted text Review performance trends Discuss contributing factors Recommend improvements