Professional speakers know that the key to success of their speech lies not actually in the speech but in presentation. Showing things to the audience is very important in this process as it helps to engage the audiences attention. PowerPoint has made a revolution in this area because now the speech is what is shown on the screen rather than what is said. Today no one can imagine public speaking without a presentation created in PowerPoint. PowerPoint is a computer program that creates slides which speaker uses to support his/her presentation. It will help you structure your presentation, create corresponding format, and provide illustrative background to your presentation.
PowerPoint ensures creation of presentation that will be comprehensive and easy to read. PowerPoint has a number of various useful illustrative functions. It is possible to use PowerPoint presentation template a pattern of slides that contain certain layout, theme fonts and effects, and background styles. PowerPoint presentation templates have consistent format and style. Different templates can be downloaded or bought on sites like www.poweredtemplate.com
However, it is also possible to create and save your own template. If you have chosen to make presentation in your own format, keep in mind the following tips:
- Text. Do not use too much text in your presentation. A useful guideline in this case is the rule of six-by-six. Create bullet points that will emphasize key points. Avoid using multiple columns of text on a single slide as the audience will find it difficult to follow it on the screen. The text is also must be of corresponding format use at least 24pt text or it will be unreadable. Use bold only for headings to help your audience differentiate between headings and other text.
- Background colour. Your slides must have the same or similar style and background schemes. Avoid using bright colours like red or yellow to highlight the text as it will be difficult to read it. Another useful tip is to use black slides in your presentation. It will make your audience refocus on you, rather than on your presentation which is necessary to do from time to time.
- Graphics. Graphics used in presentation must be relevant to the content of the presentation. If you use scanned images, make sure that their quality is appropriate. Be careful using images from the Internet as their quality is usually very low and it becomes obvious when the image is projected on the screen. Moreover, a lot of images are protected by copyright. Make sure that the image that you use is free.
- Structuring. The general rule is to use one slide every two minutes. Do not use too many slides as it will load your audience with too much information, which is very distracting.
PowerPoint presentation should not get in the way of your public speaking skills. Rehears your presentation several times and make sure that you know the sequence of slides. It will help you keep the audience concentrated not only on your presentation but also on your speech.
