Tips on creating good presentations and talks

Tips for when you are preparing a power point presentation for a talk.

1. More images, fewer words. The saying "an image is worth a thousand words" is your friend when creating a power point.

Put an image that represents what you want to explain, so it captivates the audience's attention, and they are forced to listen to you.

2. One sentence for the each main message. Do not write paragraphs; all of that will be what you say, so think about how all of it can be summarized into one sentence.

3. Both your images and your text should be big enough so everyone in your audience can see, even if they are in the back row. For text, size 18 points is good.

4. Don't overcrowd the slide; leave blank space, especially around the margins.

5. Have an Outline slide. One of your first slides should be an outline where you explain to your audience the roadmap of your talk, and then follow that map with numbers or titles in your slide. - For example, if your talk is about the weather and you're going to have an Introduction about the weather in one slide, another slide about rain, another slide about sunshine, another slide about snow, and a final slide with conclusions, your Outline slide would be right after your title slide and would list these items with a number, and this number would appear in the slide of each item.

6. Instead of displaying everything at once, use animations that come up as you talk.

7. Explain every image on your slide. When you are talking through your slide, make sure every text is mentioned and every image is explained; you have to walk your reader through your display.

8. One idea per slide. Every slide should present one idea only. Do not try to put multiple "take-home" messages in your slide; use different slides for that. One "take-home" message per slide.

9. Do not bounce back and forth through ideas. For example, if your talk is about weather and your slide is about rain, once you finish talking about rain, you can move on to talk about sunshine. - In an example, slides 1 and 2 would be about rain, and slide 3 about sunshine. - Do not talk about rain in slide 1, sunshine in slide 2, and jump back to rain in slide

Topics should be grouped in sequential order.

10. The average time you should spend is one minute per slide. This helps you estimate how long your presentation will be. If you only have a 15-minute slot to give your talk, do not have more than 15 slides.

11. Use a laser pointer if giving a talk in person, and your mouse if giving a virtual presentation, to point to different areas in your slide. For example when you are walking the audience through your images. Talking about the slide without pointing to where you're referring is a recipe to lose your audience.

12. Do not "uhm" when you're talking. If you do not know what to say or if you lose your train of thought, it's better to make a silent pause.

13. Practice in front of an audience. You can do that one of two ways: - Ask some friends or family members to listen to your talk - Practice your talk in front of a mirror. It will be awkard at first, but it's how you break the ice and practice being in front of an audience.

14. When you're giving your talk, look at your audience. Do not look down to your feet, do not read notes, do not look up or to the sides, and do not look only at the screen. The best speakers look directly at their audience.