Have Your Say

Tips for Powerful Presentations December 17, 2009

Hints for a successful presentation

• Plan carefully
• Do your research
• Know your audience
• Practice your presentation
• Speak at a comfortable pace and project to your audience
• Avoid speaking quickly to include more content
• Show enthusiasm for and interest in your topic
• Time your presentation appropriately

Effective PowerPoint slides

• First slide should include your presentation title, your name, organization logo and date
• Use design template to standardize position, colours and styles
• Use colours that work well together (Such as yellow or white on a dark blue background. Avoid use of red)
• Limit the information to essentials
• Use effects, transitions and animation very sparingly
• Limit the number of slides (no more than 12 for a 10-minute presentation)
• Do not apologize for any slide. If the content is hard to read, redo it

Text guidelines

• Generally no more than 7 words a line
• Generally no more than 7 lines a slide
• Avoid long sentences
• Provide only key points on your slides
• Larger font indicates more important information
• Font size generally ranges from 18 to 48 point
• Be sure text contrasts with background
• Fancy fonts can be hard to read
• Words in all capital letters are hard to read
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms
• Limit punctuation marks
• Spell check and proofread your work

Clip art, graphic and other features

• Use clip art, pictures, charts, tables and diagrams to enhance presentation content
• Use a chart or graph to present statistics
• No more than two graphics per slide