A Slide Presentation

Today, when we are asked to present, audiences often expect to see PowerPoint slides. PowerPoint's default slides seem to lock you into a structure: a short heading and then bullet points. Or worse, as Edward Tufte maintained, an "evil" flurry of arty charts.

An alternative structure, with a free PowerPoint template, is available from Michael Alley at Penn State.  His target audience is scientists.  He proposes an "assertion-evidence" model.  Each slide asserts in a short (two-line) headline sentence.  Then, as evidence, the slide shows one to three illustrations.

Before we make any slides at all, Alley rightly suggests we ask:

1. Can I give my audience meaningful illustrations that support without distracting?  (Clip art is useless distraction, as is the "chart junk" that Edward Tufte decries.) 
2. Will the audience understand the information on each slide?
3. Will the slides be identical to the handout?  If the slides will have to eliminate important text, or reproduce large blocks of text, they defeat their purpose.
4. Will slides really improve the audience's understanding by providing pictures, graphs, and color?  If slides are merely note cards to guide your talk, think again.

If you click on Alley's page, and scroll to the words a special PowerPoint template, you can download a PowerPoint file that illustrates by examples and with slide templates, the assertion-evidence model. No bullet lists there.