X204 Project

The ways in which we are able to communicate our message to others has changed drastically over time from writing letters to typing emails and then to sending text messages. The same thing can be said about the way we present information to others, whether it would be simply to introduce people to something new, inform others on a certain topic or persuade others to take a course of action. From the simple projectors that used knobs and transparent sheets to computers, Microsoft PowerPoint is the common visual presentation tool that almost everyone uses today for speeches, meetings and many other purposes. When presenting with one, it can help you out in the long run, or maybe hurt your presentation at the same time depending on how effectively you use it.

When it comes to PowerPoint, it is a great visual aid to use in presentations, so use it to your advantage! One benefit it has is that it can grab the attention of your audience, which not only brings interest to your presentation but also can take the pressure off yourself when you are speaking. Use it to illustrate your points such as using graphs and charts to back-up your statistics, or by using pictures to enhance your slides (or to distract in some cases). Another great value to using PowerPoint is that it helps adapt your message to people who learn in different ways. For example, there might be someone who learns better by listening while somebody else learns well visually. Believe it or not, you are actually using two channels to communicate your message this way. An interesting benefit of PowerPoint is that it can help nonnative speakers’ presentations be more understandable to an audience that has a hard time trying to pick up on the dialect of the speaker.

However, just because PowerPoint is a great tool does not mean it has its downsides as well. First of all, you do not want to take all the attention away from yourself otherwise your PowerPoint is being used more like a distraction than it should be such as adding music to your presentation. Unless you are trying to entertain, do not do this in a professional presentation. Also make sure you have a backup plan on how you are going to present because sometimes events such as blackouts may not create the most favorable conditions. Plus you don’t want to be too attached to technology for you techno people out there (Fact: The accident of the Columbia space shuttle mission was partially due to vague information used in PowerPoint instead of technical reports.). This is also self-explanatory, but do not put information in your presentation that may hurt others; otherwise, your audience may get the wrong impression about you. Last but not least, using bullet-points in your slides are great for summarizing what you are about to say, but do not use them too much in your presentation because it tends to be repetitive and in some cases too short.

These are just some of the pros and cons for this useful program. Hopefully, this will help you all reading this to become better presenters in the future.

I would like to give credit to the Web site “media.baruch.cuny.edu” for the information on some of the pros and cons of PowerPoint used in this post.

http://media.baruch.cuny.edu/faculty/jbelland/powerpoint/tips.htm

Written by Derek Huffman, Business Major at IUPUC