These points have come up repeatedly at presentation previews. They appear in numerous books and on more websites. Here they are in one tidy list that steps you through the process of developing a basic presentation.
Why is this here? As technical writers we are often asked for feedback on an amazing variety of written/presentation material. Sometimes we are required to pull together presentations for other people, sometimes for ourselves.
Know Your Audience
Slide Presentation Basics
See also
Tips for Financing Presentations
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience helps to define the scope of the information you will include in your presentation. It will also help to determine how to structure and present the information.
- If you're creating a presentation for a specific purpose, you
generally know who your audience is. Find out what that audience
is expecting and find out what they need. These are not always the
same thing.
- If you're trying to create a general presentation, you should pick an audience. You're better off showing a presentation with a clear and acknowledged slant to a different audience, than to show an unfocused and rambling collection of information with no clear purpose.
Slide Presentation Basics
If you put all the information you want to say on your slides, your presentation will likely be slowed down by too many slides, your audience will scan the information faster than you can say it, and then the audience will spend their time waiting for you to catch up. You will not have their full attention.
- Know your audience. See above.
- Understand the difference between your presentation notes and your slide presentation. The first outlines what you're going to say, the second illustrates key points.
- Before you touch Power Point or similar software, sort your information into topics, not slides.
- When the information is sorted, select a key point from each topic.
- Develop a graphic representation for each key point, for example graphs, maps, charts, photos. This is your slide show.
- If you have more than one key point for a topic that needs illustrating, consider a second illustration, but don't make it a habit.
- Rarely, there's no way to represent a key point graphically. In that case, don't be afraid to put the text up. Don't fill the slide with other information.
- Title your topics and their related slides. If you have the same title for more than one slide, fix it. Multiple slides with the same title are confusing when you refer the audience to specific information they've seen.
- Now put together your slide show using your favourite software.
- If you typically provide a printout of your presentation as a take-away handout, use the slide notes facility for your presentation notes.
See also: Tips for financial presentations
