Creating Effective Powerpoint Slides

A good PowerPoint slideshow complements your presentation by highlighting your key message, providing structure, and illustrating important details.

While it is not difficult to create a good PowerPoint presentation, it is very easy to create a bad one. Bad PowerPoint presentations may have one or more of the following characteristics: too much specialized detail, too many slides, too many colours, unnecessary images or effects, small text, unreadable figures, and/or unclear slide order.

The strategies below can help you to create effective presentations and to save your audience from “death by PowerPoint.”

Plan: Look at the Big Picture

1. Plan: Plan your talk first (see Academic Skills Oral Presentations) and then plan your PowerPoint to accompany your argument and evidence.
2. Audience: Who is in your audience and what do they know about the material? What do you want them to learn? Consider your overall argument and evidence that you want to present.
3. Purpose: Define the goals, topic and appropriate depth and scope of information.
4. Presentation Length: Know the time available for your presentation. Be realistic about how much material you can cover as it is important that you keep within your time limit. Follow the general rule of thumb: You need about one slide per minute.