This PPT was used to help students break their bad presentation habits. It is based on Mary Harrington's 12+ Tips for creating effective presentations.

1. Creating Effective PowerPoint
Presentations AF H
EW ELPFUL TIPS

2. Research on Message Retention
• According to research done at the Wharton
Research Centre:
– Only 10% of the message is retained if the
presentation contains bullet points.
– 50% of the message is retained if the presentation
uses visual slides.
– That’s an increase of five times the retention rate.

3. Message retention increase when
visuals are used
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Bullets points Visual slides
Wharton Research Centre

5. Creating an Effective PowerPoint
Presentation
• Hints for a successful presentation:
– Plan carefully
– Do your research
– Know your audience
– Time your presentation
– Practice your presentation
– Speak comfortably and clearly

6.  Plan carefully
 Do your research
Hints for a



Know your audience
Time your presentation
Speak comfortably and
{ successful
presentation:
clearly
Creating an Effective
PowerPoint Presentation

7. A logo can be distracting and
pointless if on every slide
Exclude distracting items
This is not good!

8. Exclude distracting items
This is good!

9. Promote readability
This is not good!

10. Promote readability
This is good!

11. Promote readability
This is good!

12. Rules about Font Selection
• Select a sans serif font such as
Calibri, Arial, Trebuchet, or Verdana
• Limit your fonts to two, at most

13. Select a sans serif font

14. Calibri Garamond
Arial Times New Roman
Trebuchet Century School book
Verdana Courier New

15. Rules about Font Size
• Always use fonts that are 24 pts. or larger
• If you have a lot of information that you think is important and the audience just has to know!
– Include it in your handout
– Display only the highlights in your presentation

16. Use fonts that are
24 pts. or larger

17. Don’t have your image and
text completely separated
Create a unified and visual
message
The picture is funny and makes a point but the quality is horrible.
Avoid Clip Art…its garbage, dated, and unprofessional

18. Use high quality photos and incorporate your text
Note: The more hq photos on a slide will make ppt run slow
Tip: Google wallpaper, high resolution or HQ

19. When preparing the content of
your slides, use phrases rather
then full sentences, with the
possible exception of short direct
quotes.

20. Use phrases rather than full
sentences

21. Rules about Bullet Points
• Use bullet points sparingly.
• If using bullet points, be sure they are less than six words long.
• They are less then six sentences in your slide.
• Your audience will try to read all the bullet points and not listen to you.
• The more bullet points you add the more your slide starts to fill up and
eventually your font will start to decrease because your only allowed so
much room.
• And the more you add to your slide the more your audience will become
overwhelmed.
• And I’m going to add another bullet just to make my point that you should
use bullet points sparingly.
• Annnd try to keep your bullets simple like with a dot, dash, asterisk, or
small block.
• No skulls or fingers or smiley faces.
• At this point my font is at 20.

22. Use bullet points sparingly!

23. Rules about headers
• Eliminate headers when possible
• Except if used to communicate the message

24. 98% of headers are redundant
1
0.5
0
Redundant headers Useful headers

25. Highlight or change chart format
10th Qtr Sales
9th Qtr 2%
5% 0%
1st Qtr
14%
2nd Qtr
8th Qtr 6% 3rd Qtr
18% 2%
4th Qtr
2%
5th Qtr
11%
7th Qtr
26%
6th Qtr
14%

26. Less cluttered and highlighted
Sales
10th Qtr 1
1st Qtr
9th Qtr 2.8
2nd Qtr
8th Qtr 10
3rd Qtr
7th Qtr 15
4th Qtr
6th Qtr 7.9
5th Qtr 6.5 5th Qtr
4th Qtr 1.2 6th Qtr
3rd Qtr 1.4 7th Qtr
2nd Qtr 3.2 8th Qtr
1st Qtr 8.2 9th Qtr
10th Qtr
0 5 10 15 20

27. BE PASSIONATE ABOUT YOUR TOPIC
1. You control the message.
2. The audience should focus on your
words.
3. The slides should enhance, not be the
presentation.
4. Bullet points are not passionate.