PowerPoint is a great tool that can be used to enhance a presentation. It can complement a presentation. Unfortunately, I believe that many PowerPoints are ineffective at what they attempt to do--convey information.
By far, I feel that the one thing that can absolutely ruin an entire presentation is to have the PowerPoint be boring. Microsoft made thousands of templates, dozens of transitions and animations, and millions of graphics--they should be used. Nothing puts me to bed faster than that 30-minute black text/white background PowerPoint that my classmates used to make in 8th grade.
Spelling and grammar mistakes certainly make your PowerPoint more interesting, but probably not in the way you want. At least seeing mistakes is amusing. Overall, it does little to help your professionalism and authority on the subject.
Did you just use a heinous looking purple and red themed PowerPoint template with all information in hearts? I normally do not take down notes from PowerPoints with hearts in them. It's important to realize that colors do matter and the concept of complementary colors has been around for hundreds of years. It is best to not disturb it.
When you have fit an entire encyclopedia page onto your screen, it's time to cut and start a new slide. Usually I'm in the back of the room--maybe about 30 feet away--and you used 6 point font. I can't read that.
When I see some of my friends (and I love them) use a word like "ubiquitous" or "subservience," I just know that you copied it. If you didn't copy it, you got way too friendly with the Thesaurus. After I realize this, I just internally laugh for the remainder of the presentation. Of course, I'm usually sitting next to a bunch of people who are noticing the same thing.
This is just a few ways of how not to create a PowerPoint presentation. I don't think there is enough room on the Internet to go over all of them.
These are all excellent points. The tone you use here makes this amusing but yet helpful. Presenters need to think about their audience more. That is the point of a presentation. I will see the design templates are great but mistakes can be made in going over board with bells and whistles like animations and sounds. There is nothing worse than watching text rotate around so much that you get dizzy or listening to annoying sounds effects.
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