**HELLO WRITER, PLEASE RESPOND TO THE CLASSMATES POST ABOUT POWERPOINTS AND AGREE WITH WHAT THEY ARE SAYING**
THE CLASSMATES DISCUSSION POST:
Hello Professor and class,
What are some common PowerPoint mistakes? How can they be avoided?
What can you do to be sure that your PowerPoint presentation is well received?
What tips can you share with the class to ensure a successful presentation?
The most common PowerPoint mistakes cause confusion, distraction, and a bad perception of the PowerPoint presenter. YouTube’s video, Don McMillan: Life after Death by PowerPoint (2008) describes the most common mistakes as bad color schemes, wrong font selection, bad grammar or punctuation, and an excessive amount of animation graphics, data graphs & charts, written text, bullet points, as confusing and distracting to audiences causing them to develop a bad perception of the presenter and the information that is being presented.
Creating a presentation that displays the right balance of written text and visuals that compliment your verbal or written project while avoiding common mistakes is key to presenting a well-received PowerPoint presentation. Microsoft (2024) suggests that you select a font color that is of high contrast to the slide’s color in a font style that is simple and not difficult to read with a size that is visible from anywhere in the room that you are presenting in, keeping to a minimum the use of animated graphics, data chart & graph information, and written text on the slide to allow your audience the opportunity to read quickly so they can focus on the verbal portion of your PowerPoint presentation.
The best tips that I can contribute to the list of avoiding common mistakes for a successful presentation are consistency on all slides and practicing the verbal portion of your presentation on the record feature on PowerPoint so you can time your speech and hear the flow of your words with the slides.
Consistency on all slides to me means going slide by slide to check all the font styles and sizes are consistent on each page and that there are visuals on every third page. I have caught many mistakes that I like avoiding by doing this. I also use the record button to practice the speech portion of my presentation, it helps with the rate of speech so that I don’t speak too fast or too slow, and improves the tone of my voice so I sound confident and enthusiastic during my speech.
-Peter
References
Microsoft. (2024). Microsoft. Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/tips-for-creating-and-delivering-an-effective-presentation-f43156b0-20d2-4c51-8345-0c337cefb88b
YouTube. (2008). Don McMillan: Life after death by PowerPoint. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck
