Presentation Slides and Handouts: 2 Reminders

Greetings again. I hope that all is going well.

Much of this past weekend, I was at our college of medicine. The second-year medical students were preparing to give presentations Monday in a class. Therefore over the weekend I was available to review drafts of their PowerPoint presentations and handouts.

Earlier in the semester, I had given the students a lecture on preparing oral presentations. The lecture resembled some presentations on the subject that are available in the AuthorAID Resource Library.

In general, the students’ drafts of presentations and handouts were very good. However, I noticed 2 common problems. Because these problems often occur in presentations and handouts by other people too, I’m mentioning them here, as a reminder.

The first problem was inclusion of too much text. Some students’ PowerPoint slides contained long blocks of text, long sentences, or many lines of text. Likewise, some of the handouts contained long paragraphs. The type on some slides was very small.

To be easily readable, slides and handouts should not be crowded with text. PowerPoint slides should contain only a few lines of writing. In general, slides and handouts should contain bulleted or numbered lists rather than paragraphs.

The second problem was lack of citation when photos, diagrams, or other graphics were taken from online or printed sources.

Generally, if speakers use graphics that are not their own work, they must identify the source. In a presentation, the identification should appear on the same slide. In a handout, it should appear nearby.

Until the next post—

Barbara