Toward More Effective Presentations:

Some Thoughts and Advice on Student Presentations

 

Dr. John V. Richardson Jr.,

Professor of Information Studies

Winter 2018

 

Public presentations are in your future and Microsoft’s PowerPoint (PP) is a popular method of presenting.  Yet, some conferences, such as the 2012 ALISE conference, have outright bans on using PP because of the criticisms, most notably by Edward R. Tufte, emeritus professor of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University; see his critique entitled The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press LLC, 2003).1   In fact, there seems to be a world-wide objection; for instance, in Switzerland, there is even an Anti-Power Point Party. 

 

Here are some thoughts and advice on improving your talk:

 

Arrive early to check on the room and the computer setup--

a.      Can you login?

b.      Does the technology match your files?  In other words, can you access those files and/or the internet, if need be?

c.       Does the sound work?

2)      Can the slides be seen from back of room? 

3)      Make good eye contact.  Know your content well enough not to read the slides (i.e., making good eye contact builds rapport with the audience).  Note that many speakers only talk at about 125 words per minute (American adults may read prose aloud at 250-300 words).  Most of your audience can easily read at least 400 words on average to perhaps even 1,000 words per minute.

4)      In larger rooms, repeat the questions from the audience, so that everybody can hear the question.

5)      Use of gestures to emphasize points.  Also, gestures suggest a relaxed or comfortableness with being in front of a group.

6)      Work on eliminating disfluencies (such as “um”) and place holders (such as the use of “like”)—“Placeholders are hesitation markers which signal production difficulties on the side of the speaker,” according to Dmitry Ganenkov et al.

 

Revised: 22 December 2017; Created: Spring 2011

 

_______

1.                   Tufte is opposed to many things including PP’s: a) low resolution, b) bullet points, c) style sheets, and d) sequentiality, among other concerns.