1 Introduction to Oral Presentations I. Information basics (rules to follow in any form of communication) A. Identify the purpose of your presentation (or other form of communication is) 1. Describe 2. Explain 3. Persuade B. Identify the audience and the key characteristics of the audience that will determine how you communicate. Once you have identified the audience, you can determine the appropriate 1. Vocabulary: should you use professional terminology, acronyms/abbreviations, or slang? 2. Complexity: how much detail (e.g., theory, research methodology) should you include? 3. Motivation: what can you say to the audience that will keep them interested and engaged with your topic? Why will they care about what you have to say? II. Presentation specifics (issues that apply specifically to oral presentations) A. Remember that you are introducing yourself as well as your topic 1. Tell the audience enough about you that they can identify you and your interest/ expertise in topic. Remember that the more they care and trust you, the more they will be persuaded by what you have to say. 2. Do not assume that the audience understands what your presentation will be about. Tell them explicitly what information will be covered in your presentation. B. Strategies for guiding the audience about what you will present and how the different parts of your presentation are related 1. Outlines show the relation among different ideas 2. Titles show the main topic under discussion as well as locate your information within the overall outline 3. Repetition emphasizes important points and helps the audience understand how the current topic is related to previous information 4. Summarizing helps the audience fill in any gaps in the information previously presented 5. Transitions between slides/topics are as important as the slides/topics themselves. Make sure you are clear about how your different ideas fit together. III. Visual aids that can be used in oral presentations A. Posters/wall signs 1. Main strength: they are visible throughout the presentation and can be referred to often. 2. Purpose: to highlight key points or provide a framework/outline for the information to be presented. A poster of Bronfenbrenner s System Theory can help the audience remember that the presentation addresses diverse influence s on the child, throughout the child s life, while the presenter speaks about any one age or influence.
2 B. Handouts 1. Main strengths: a. Audience can keep them and refer to them after the presentation is over. b. They may encourage the audience to take notes and guide their notetaking. 1. Purpose: to remind the audience about key points in the presentation and/or present detailed information that is not included in the presentation but may be useful to the audience later. Visual aids Posters/wall signs Always visible Highlight key Transparencies/slides points/framework Controlled by presenter Handouts Incremental Taken home Highlight organization Contain Blackboards/notes detail/reminders Controlled by presenter Incremental Flexible/responsive C. Transparencies/slides 1. Main strengths: a. They are controlled by presenter, so you can determine what the audience will see and about what they will be thinking. b. They are incremental, so you can add new information as you move through the presentation. 2. Purposes: a. To highlight the organization of the presentation and the relation among different ideas. b. To provide visual examples (when relevant). c. To emphasize main points in oral content. D. Blackboards or large-format written notes 1. Main strengths: a. They are controlled by presenter, so you can determine what the audience will see and about what they will be thinking. b. They are flexible and allow you to respond to the specific comments and questions of the audience. 2. Purposes: a. To answer questions. b. To emphasize main points in oral content.
3 IV. Combining visual and oral content: these are two different ways of presenting complementary information, but each has a distinct purpose. A. Visual information should 1. Clarify the main points and the relation between those points. 2. Provide visual examples (when appropriate). B. Oral content should 1. Provide anecdotes and explanations that support the main ideas presented visually. 2. Explain relation and provide transition between different points. 3. Give context to support understanding. IV. The special role of PowerPoint: PowerPoint serves a specific purpose by emphasizing outlines while allowing you to engage the audience through visual and auditory simulation. A. PowerPoint should be understood as a visual outline. There should not be long blocks of text (as in a paper or handout). Instead, use short bullets that organize the information. To be effective, you should make sure that the slides show the link between topics and the appropriate level of detail. You should also follow basic outline rules, so that there is more than one item at each level of the outline and different items on the slide have parallel form. B. PowerPoint s unique features allow you to 1. Create emphasis by a. Adding visual highlights, such as boxing text, changing the color or font of text, etc. b. Adding motion, so that items appear as you discuss them (or disappear after you are done) as well as adding arrows or other images to highlight specific information in sequence. c. Sounds to regain audience attention. 2. Add personality, showing your own aesthetic sense in your choice of colors, fonts, backgrounds, etc. 3. However, remember that you should be careful when adding bling (motion, sound, fancy fonts) because too much excitement will distract the audience from the main message of the presentation (the content). In determining whether to add special features, consider whether they will increase audience a. Understanding of the material b. Interest in what is being said (as well as in the presentation itself) c. Retention of the information
4 Introduction to PowerPoint 2000/2003 PowerPoint 2000 and 2003 have similar functions (although some bling and specialized features are only available in 2003). However, the screens look a little different. All campus computers have PowerPoint 2003, but some home and public library computers will still have 2000. The PowerPoint 2003 screen (left) has 4 sections: 1. The far left side of the screen has an area where you can see small images of all slides created (a blank square labeled 1 is showing in the image) or see an outline view of the information by clicking on the outline tab) 2. The main window, which shows the slide you are currently working on. Whatever is on the white part of the slide will show on the screen when you view the presentation. Anything on the grey background (storage space) will be saved with the presentation but will not appear on screen. 3. The notes area (at the bottom of the screen). This is a place for you to make notes to yourself about the detail, anecdotes, or other information you may want to add during the presentation. The notes pages will not show during the on-screen presentation but can be printed for use during the presentation. This is also a good place to keep track of reference information for facts that you have included on the slide. 4. The Task Pane allows you to access design feature by clicking on the arrow next to getting started in the pane. If your Task Pane is not visible, you can turn it on by going to the View menu at the top of the screen and clicking on Task Pane. 1. Slide thumbnail or outline view, depending on which of these two tabs is clicked. 2. The main window, showing the slide on which you are currently working. 3. These notes are visible when working on the presentation and can be printed, but will not appear when the presentation is shown. 4. The task pane will allow you access function such as clipart, slide layout, and design templates.
5 If you are using PowerPoint 2000 you will not have the option to see slide thumbnails while working on the slides (the view will always be the outline view, as shown in to the left. You also will not have a Task Pane, but you can access all of the features of the Task Pane through the menus at the top of the screen. In addition to the basic working screen (the normal view), there are other ways of viewing PowerPoint. You can shift between views by clicking on the small icons in the bottom left corner of the screen or by using the view menu at the top of the screen. The slide sorter view lets you see thumbnail views of all of the slides in the presentation. You can control the thumbnail size by changing the percentage on the standard toolbar. You access the slide sorter view by selecting slide sorter in the view menu or clicking on the second icon (showing 4 small squares) in the lower left corner of the screen. In this view, you can change the order of slides by dragging a slide from one location to another. The third viewing option is the slide show view (shown by a screen icon on the bottom left). This is the option that you will use to do the actual presentation. It is a good idea to preview your presentation using slide show before you actually present, to make sure everything works the way you expected it to.
6 Accessing Toolbars As was the case with Word, PowerPoint relies on toolbars. You will want to make sure that your standard, formatting, and drawing toolbars are turned on by clicking on the view menu, selecting toolbars, and then checking those toolbars. This is also how you will turn on your Task Pane if it is not turned on already. Adding Color and Fonts While you can change the colors and fonts on any slide or any part of slide individually, it best to choose a look for the whole presentation and then adjust that look as necessary. That is easier than changing the fonts and color on every slide as you go. These default settings can be changed at any time. There are 3 strategies for creating a look for your whole presentation: 1. Slide design templates contain a combination of graphics, fonts, colors, bullets, and sometimes sounds and/or animation. You can access design templates in the Task Pane (as shown to the right) and can download additional templates from the Microsoft website. 2. Side color schemes are similar to, but less complicated than, design templates. Color schemes change the background color, font colors, and default shape and outline colors but do not change fonts, bullets, or add sounds or animation. 3. The master slide lets you customize the defaults for the presentation on your own. You can either edit the defaults of a design template or color scheme or you can start with a blank presentation and create your own look for the slides. You access the master slide by going to the view menu and selecting master and then slide master. Any changes that you make to the slide master will apply to default formatting on the whole presentation. However, if you change a slide manually (alter the background, font, etc. on a specific slide) that will remove the default formatting. Subsequent updates to the master will no longer affect that slide.
7 There are generally two slide masters: a master for the standard slide (with a title and bulleted text box) and a master for the title slide (with a title and subtitle). Design templates will also usually come with different templates for these different types of slides. In addition to slide masters, there is a master view for notes pages and for handouts (right). The notes pages print a copy of the slide at the top and the contents of the notes window at the bottom, so that you can have both to view while you are presenting. (Remember, when you show the presentation the audience will only see the slides, not the notes). You can edit the size of the slide and notes areas on the printout, the default fonts, headers, etc. The handouts template controls the headers and footers on printed handouts you may wish to give the audience (like the notes pages for our class lectures). You cannot control the size of the slide images on notes pages, just the headers and footers. Controlling Bulleted Lists As with Word, PowerPoint has a ruler bar that determines the indentation of different outline levels. The carrot down controls the first line and the carrot up controls the remaining lines. You turn the ruler on using the view menu. Also as in Word, you move up or down in levels of the outline using the right (increase indent) and left (decrease indent or outdent) arrow on the formatting toolbar. You can increase or decrease indentation by placing your cursor in either the main text box of a content slide or in the outline view area on the left side of the normal screen.
8 Adding & Manipulating Clipart Unfortunately, it would be prohibitively wordy to explain this entire section of the lecture so I am going to present the slides without commentary and hope it is self-explanatory. If not, please let me know! Adding Clipart Clipart Window Clip Organizer Select Picture Stored on Your Computer Search Microsoft Clips On Line Giraffes Click on Selected Clips Downloading Open to Save Back to Clip Organizer Right Click to Copy
9 Right Click to Paste Giraffes! Editing Clipart Drawing menu Hidden Menu Items Ungrouped Image Select part of Image Fill through format menu or drawing toolbar Fill options
10 Saving It is important to save periodically while working on your presentation. Because PowerPoint files must be shown (and therefore used on different computers), you should embed your fonts. This enables the presentation to use the fonts you chose, even if those fonts are not installed on the computer you are using to show the presentation. To embed fonts, choose save as rather than save form the file menu. In the save as box, select save options and then make sure that embed true type fonts is checked. PowerPoint may tell you that you replacing your previous version of the file, which is okay. Printing You can to choose to print the slides, on slide per page (in order to make transparencies), to print handouts with 2 to 9 slides per page, or to print the notes pages. Each of this can be printed in color or in grayscale. To select your print format, choose an option from print what on the print screen (accessed from the file menu). If you are printing handouts, you will have option of indicating how many slides per page you want to print.