Presentation/PowerPoint Workshop /
Summer 2002  The Discovery Museums  Tufts School of Engineering  Lucent Technologies Foundation

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

understand components of a technical presentation

use PowerPoint to create presentations

Before you start…

Before starting to prepare a presentation, make sure you can answer the following questions:

  • What is the main focus of the presentation going to be?
  • How long is the presentation going to be? Will there be time for questions later?
  • Who are the target audience?

What goes into a technical presentation?

  1. Title Slide
  2. title of the presentation – title must be informative!!
  3. subtitle – name(s) and affiliation of the presenter(s), date
  4. Overview
  5. a brief outline of the talk – no more than 1 slide, 1 minute
  6. let the audience know what to expect
  7. Introduction
  8. what are you presenting?
  9. motivation for the project – why is the work valuable?
  10. any background information that the audience should know about the project (for example, theory, previous work, or re-cap of previous presentation if it’s a continuation)
  11. Body
  12. main body of the presentation
  13. procedure / process / results
  14. Conclusion
  15. a brief summary of the talk
  16. future work

Time Management

  • Plan for 1 minute per slide – if you have a 15 minute presentation, you should have approximately 15 slides.
  • The main body should take up at least 50% of the presentation.
  • Introduction is the next time-consuming section.

What goes on a Slide?

A slide typically (but not always) contains:

  • Title
  • Text – use outline format; avoid sentences and paragraphs
  • Figures and pictures – make the slide more visually appealing
  • Footer (optional) – date, slide number, etc

When making your slides, keep these things in mind:

  • pictures make slides more appealing – but make sure they are relevant to the slide
  • avoid conflicting colors
  • use animation and sounds in moderation
  • ALWAYS SPELLCHECK!!

Preparing for the Presentation

  • Check what equipment is being used, and prepare slides accordingly. Make sure you know:
     Is the room equipped with a computer?
     What type (PC or Mac), and what version of PowerPoint does the computer have?
     How can you get your presentation onto the computer (internet, zip drive, etc)?
     If your presentation uses sound, do the computer and room have sound capabilities?
     If your need to use the internet, check that the computer has a working connection.
     If the room does not have a computer, then is there an overhead projector available?
  • Practice – but do not memorize the presentation word-for-word.
  • The slides should serve as your notes, but having some notes on paper is okay.

Common Mistakes in a Presentation

Keep these points in mind to help you avoid making these common mistakes.

Presentation Style

  • speaking too fast or too softly
  • moving too much or not moving at all
  • no eye contact or staring at one person for too long
  • facing your presentation, not the audience
  • trying to squeeze in too much detail – the audience will get lost
  • addressing the wrong audience / assuming that the audience knows more than they do
  • zipping through a slide and not letting the audience see the contents
  • giving discouraging comments at the beginning (i.e., “I didn’t have time to prepare…”)

Visual Quality of Slides

  • font too small or hard to read
  • too many words – avoid putting full sentences or paragraphs on a slide
  • too much animation or sound effects – these can be VERY distracting
  • no pictures at all, too many pictures, or putting irrelevant pictures on slides
  • conflicting colors, or busy background – can’t see the contents
  • ALWAYS SPELLCHECK!!! Typos are very distracting in a presentation!

Microsoft PowerPoint

Starting a Presentation

PowerPoint is a software used for creating professional quality presentations with multimedia.

When you open PowerPoint, the following dialog box will show up:

To start a presentation from scratch, choose Blank presentation. To use one of the pre-made templates, choose Design Template. If you already have a file, go to Open an existing presentation.

Adding Slides

When beginning a new file, the New Slide dialog box will prompt you to choose a slide layout:

The first (default) layout is for a title slide. All other layouts are for typical slides in a presentation.

When you select a layout, a slide will appear with “fields” for you to enter information into. Simply click on the field, and enter the text.

To add new slides, go to Insert New Slide (or Ctrl-M, or click on ). The New Slide dialog box will show up every time you choose to add slides. The new slide will be inserted AFTER the current slide.

To see all slides in one view, go to ViewSlide Sorter. Here you can re-order slides by highlighting and dragging them. To go back to slide editing, you can double click on a slide or go to ViewNormal.

Exercise 1:
  1. Open PowerPoint.
  2. Choose Design Template, and from the dialog box, select a template of your choice.
  3. Choose Title Slide for the layout.
  4. Enter the title of the presentation and a subtitle (your name, date, etc).
  5. Add at least two more slides using different slide layouts.

Inserting Images

There are several ways to insert images into PowerPoint:

  1. Clip Art
    Microsoft has an assortment of images available for use. Go to InsertPictureClipArt…, then select a picture of your choice. You may also click on Clips Online to use a wider selection of images available from Microsoft website.
  2. Images from file
    If you have an image stored in your computer that you wish to use, go to InsertPictureFromFile… to select the image. PowerPoint can import most image files, including JPG, GIF, PICT, TIFF, etc.
  3. Copy & Paste from other document
    If you choose to use an existing image from another document (such as the web), first copy the original picture, then go to EditPaste Special… Picture to insert the image into your slide.
    ** If you are using an image from the web, make sure that the image is not copyrighted.
  4. Creating your own pictures in PowerPoint
    You can create your own drawings in PowerPoint. The drawing toolbar typically is at the bottom of the screen.

Running your Slide Show

When you have your slides completed, you can look through them in full-screen view by going to ViewSlide Show (or Slide ShowView Show). Use Space bar, , or mouse button to advance the slides.

You can add transition effects between slides by going to Slide ShowSlide Transition… Transition effects between slides let you advance the slides in a more interesting way. However, overuse of the transition can be distracting and annoying for the audience!

Exercise 2:
  1. In your previous presentation, add an image of your choice, either from a clipart, from a file, or by copying and pasting from another document.
  2. Use the drawing tools in PowerPoint to draw a figure in your presentation. You may need to add more slides to make room.
  3. View the slide show in full-screen view. Try adding transition effects to see what happens.

PowerPoint Tips & Things to Consider

  • Choose the slide design BEFORE you make the slides
    Each design template has its own set of default colors and formats that may not work well when switched from one design to another. If you change your slide design after making the slides, you may need to fix some colors and fonts on your text and drawings.
  • Beware of unintentional sound effects
    Some animation and transition effects come with sound effects. If you are working on a computer that has no sound, you may be unaware of the sound effects. If you DO NOT want sound, make sure you choose “No Sound” when adding slide transitions and animations.
  • Use standard fonts
    If the computer on which you made the presentation is different from the one you are presenting on, the available fonts might be different. If you use an unusual font that is not available on the computer that you are presenting on, then the presentation will appear with some random font.
  • Use easy-to-read fonts
    Non-Serif fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, etc) are easier to read on the screen than Serif-fonts (Times). The smallest font that can be easily read by the audience is 20pt. Do not use any font smaller than 20pt. on your presentation.
    If you need a little more extra space on your slide, try shrinking the line spacing between bullet items by going to FormatLine Spacing. This is a better approach than shrinking font sizes.

When printing your PowerPoint slides, choose FilePrint… and select “Handouts” from the Print what box. Choose to print up to 9 slides per page to save some paper.

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