How to Make a Great PowerPoint Presentation
Decide what you want your audience to learn., Boil your information down., Plan out your structure.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Decide what you want your audience to learn.
Before you begin, it will be necessary to determine what you want your main take-away message or information to be.
This should be an identifiable main point, which all of your other information will support.
If you are doing an academic presentation, it will be the equivalent of your thesis statement.
If your presentation is business related, it will be the product or service which you are proposing or advocating.
Nevertheless, prepare for the content to put in your presentation before you open and start with a blank presentation. -
Step 2: Boil your information down.
Try to only keep the information that you can't do without.
If you have a load of text in your hands, cut it down to the most important bits.
If you have a boring graph about how internet users have increased throughout the years, make a statistic instead.
Say, the amount of internet users have tripled since the last decade, now up to 3 billion.
This way, you will be presenting the same information to your audience, just in a more interesting and instigating way.
It will also keep your presentation from being to long or sounding "rambling". , Now that you know what information must be included, begin to plan the structure of your presentation.
You will want to plan as much of your speech and slides on paper as possible.
Outline not only your speech but your slides as well.
The structure of an academic presentation should follow roughly the same structure as an academic paper, first introducing your main point, supporting it with evidence, and then a short conclusion.
For business presentations, Guy Kawasaki (a notable business adviser and marketing guru) suggests this standard presentation structure:
The Problem Your solution Business model Underlying magic/technology Marketing and sales Competition Team Projections and milestones Status and timeline Summary and call to action -
Step 3: Plan out your structure.
Detailed Guide
Before you begin, it will be necessary to determine what you want your main take-away message or information to be.
This should be an identifiable main point, which all of your other information will support.
If you are doing an academic presentation, it will be the equivalent of your thesis statement.
If your presentation is business related, it will be the product or service which you are proposing or advocating.
Nevertheless, prepare for the content to put in your presentation before you open and start with a blank presentation.
Try to only keep the information that you can't do without.
If you have a load of text in your hands, cut it down to the most important bits.
If you have a boring graph about how internet users have increased throughout the years, make a statistic instead.
Say, the amount of internet users have tripled since the last decade, now up to 3 billion.
This way, you will be presenting the same information to your audience, just in a more interesting and instigating way.
It will also keep your presentation from being to long or sounding "rambling". , Now that you know what information must be included, begin to plan the structure of your presentation.
You will want to plan as much of your speech and slides on paper as possible.
Outline not only your speech but your slides as well.
The structure of an academic presentation should follow roughly the same structure as an academic paper, first introducing your main point, supporting it with evidence, and then a short conclusion.
For business presentations, Guy Kawasaki (a notable business adviser and marketing guru) suggests this standard presentation structure:
The Problem Your solution Business model Underlying magic/technology Marketing and sales Competition Team Projections and milestones Status and timeline Summary and call to action
About the Author
Christopher Barnes
Dedicated to helping readers learn new skills in DIY projects and beyond.
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