Tips for PowerPoint Presentations

A laptop computer (with Windows XP OS), LCD projector, and screen will be available in each breakout room. Bring your presentation on a high-speed USB flash drive or CD (no zip files). Save your presentation as last name and first initial, using lower case. For example, Mary Smith's PowerPoint slides should be labeled: smithm.ppt.

Number of Slides

A good rule of thumb is to show no more than one slide per minute , recognizing that extra time may be needed to orient your audience to slides displaying data.

Contrasting Colors

Please be sure your slides consist of contrasting colors that will show up in a darkened room – either a dark font on a light background or a light font on a dark background. Remember that members of the audience may be red/green colorblind. Also, avoid complicated backgrounds that overwhelm the content.

Slide Format

• For text slides, use 24 point font and bullets , with no more than four or five bullets per slide. Bullets should be one or two lines at most and contain no more than six words per line.
• For data slides with a two-column table, you should have no more than five rows. For a three-column table, you should have no more than three rows.

Presentation

•  Introduction (2-3 slides)

• Appropriate attention getter (link to the message you want the audience to take away)
• Rationale for the study
• Study questions/hypotheses
• List of organization(s) funding the project

•  Method (2-4 slides)

• Design
• Sampling
• Data collection
• Key variables
• Analytic strategies

•  Results (2-4 slides)

•  Summary (1 slide)

•  Significance/relevance to policy, management and/or clinical practice (1-2 slides)

Other Tips

• Pretest your presentation to ensure it is readable from a distance.
• Make sure the flow of your presentation matches the slides.
• If possible, bring 50-75 handouts of your presentation to share with the audience.