Research Paper and presentation
baddamprathyusha
PowerPointTips.pptxTitle PowerPoint
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This presentation is both template and tips. It is intended to be used by University of Phoenix students to help them understand what is expected in an academically rigorous PowerPoint presentation. However, it’s not just useful for college. The tips and techniques described in this presentation were learned (sometimes painfully) over many years preparing presentations for both senior corporate officials to deliver and for the author to deliver to those leaders.
PowerPoint has become the defacto method for providing textual and graphic information while delivering a presentation. With humble roots going back to the 80’s, it now is used in 10’s of thousands of organizations.
http://www.brighthub.com/office/collaboration/articles/13189.aspx
http://www.ibtimes.com/office-365-crushes-google-apps-enterprise-microsoft-now-controls-over-25-market-share-2070185
This slide is known as a Title Slide. Choose a meaningful, memorable name for your presentation and make sure to put your name, the assignment name, course number, and date on it.
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Effective Presentations…
Cover the Required Subject Matter
Use Professional Language
Include Research and Academic Depth
Incorporate Effective Slides
Have Detailed Speaker Notes
Wrap Up the Topic
The 2nd slide in any presentation is an overview slide. It functions much like the introduction paragraph of an academic paper. Use one bullet for each major topic you’re going to cover, almost like they would be future paragraphs in a paper. The bullets on this slide will be the title of the subsequent slides in the presentation. Use the same wording from your overview slide for those subsequent slides. Note that the overview slide, like any good slide, contains bullets instead of complete sentences, and the notes page you’re reading right now is written like a script. There’s more on slide content and speaker notes in upcoming slides.
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Cover Required Subject Matter
Read requirements carefully
Plan before you type
ATQ (Answer The Question)
Use terminology from instructions
Every assignment will have instructions. It might seem obvious, but many times students read the instructions quickly or not at all, and create the wrong presentation to satisfy the requirements. There will be specific things to cover in every presentation you do, whether it’s for a school assignment or something that your boss asked you to develop for work. Just like a contractor building a house for a picky client, you must build a presentation that contains the features required by your customer (aka your instructor or supervisor, etc.)
It’s important to pause and think before you open PowerPoint. Grab a piece of paper and outline your presentation, using the same outline format that you learned about in grade school. Each major topic will likely relate to a slide. The main thing is to think before you type.
Once you’ve read the requirements/instructions and planned out your slides, make sure to do a sanity check that it answers the questions posed to you. If an assignment asks you to list the risks of using social media to promote a business and ways to mitigate those risks, leaving out the mitigation techniques only answers half the question. Make sure you thoroughly ATQ.
Don’t make up new terminology when developing your slides. Use the wording from the instructions, or the words given to you buy your boss. If the assignment calls for pros & cons, don’t say “advantages and disadvantages.” Words count, and your audience will be looking for certain wording.
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Professional Language
No mistakes
Use industry terminology
Formal, but not stiff or wordy
PowerPoint slides are brief. In fact, they usually accompany what is called a briefing in many circles. Since they’re brief, any mistake on them jumps off the screen at the audience. Many times, you’ll be delivering these presentations to busy, educated, smart executives. They will be particularly sensitive to obvious spelling or grammar mistakes on your slides. If your slides have errors, it will detract from both your message and your professional credibility (http://www.nbcnews.com/business/why-johnny-cant-write-why-employers-are-mad-2D11577444)
Make sure you’re using the proper industry terminology for things. A common example would be to say “mainframe” when you really just mean “server.” When covering a technical topic, make sure you understand the terms on your slides. If you don’t, contact your instructor for help.
Use more formal language than you would in normal conversation with friends or family. Avoid asking the audience rhetorical questions like “So, where do we go from here?” It’s better to make statements and provide information than to ask leading questions.
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Research and Academic Depth
Favor facts over your opinion
Always include research sources
Avoid unsupported broad statements
Incorporate facts, figures and stats
Avoid Plagiarism
Use a citation and then list the source on your reference slide (Apperson, Laws, & Scepansky, 2008)
In the world of academic writing, your personal knowledge and opinions are rarely important. When you write, present facts that are backed up with credible research sources. When students submit PowerPoint presentations that say things like “In my opinion, Microsoft Office is the most popular…” the audience will be thinking “so…who are you and why does your opinion matter?” Make sure your presentations have depth. Anybody can pound out what they know about FaceBook. Go into depth on your topics. This is college.
Following the previous thought, it’s better to include a research source to say how popular Microsoft office is compared to the competition. There are polls and market research data all over the Internet. Use that to make your case, not your own impressions of the world.
Interesting, attention-getting statements are great. Just make sure you support them. For instance, many students will have a bullet like “Almost everybody has a mobile phone nowadays.” Well, says who? Any time you make a statement that your audience might be tempted to ask “says who”, you need to be prepared with a source. (Yes, this takes time).
Your presentations should be brimming with facts and figures. If you make a statement about the popularity of FaceBook, don’t be generic. Quote a reputable source that says exactly how many users there are at the current time
Use current research sources. It’s rare that anything written over a year ago is still true. If it’s old background material, an old source can be okay, but be very careful to use contemporary (recent) sources.
Plagiarism is using someone else’s work without giving credit, or over relying on someone else’s work even while citing the source. Please DO NOT CUT AND PASTE, even if you change the wording slightly. Your slides should be your own words, as you’ll certify every time you submit an assignment. It can be all to tempting to copy content from the Internet.
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Effective Slides
Short, bullet format
Choose words carefully
Use graphics and charts only when appropriate
Slide title matches overview
Consistency between slides
Transitions, animations and builds
Design Templates
Note that the slides in this presentation are short, concise and not grammatically complete sentences. When a slide goes up, the audience will usually read every word. If you use bullets, they’ll spend less time reading and more time listening to you.
Words count, and you don’t have a lot of room. Choose the fewest words possible to communicate your meaning. In other words, be compendious. (Don’t be afraid if you have to Google that one. I just learned it a few years ago)
Don’t use graphics unless you create them. Use bullets that convey information instead of logos or pictures that are just “cute.”
Use similar words for your slide title that you did back in the overview (slide #2).
Make sure each slide uses the same font and overall style. When you watch it in slide show, the bullets and slide titles shouldn’t bounce around too much
Transitions, animations, and builds are advanced techniques. If you know what they are, use them sparingly if at all. If you don’t know what they are, don’t worry about it.
Design templates can enhance the appearance of your presentation. You can develop your presentation in the default “no frills” template that is all white. After you’re satisfied with the content, you can click on the Design tab and choose a Theme. Try a few out to see which one you prefer. PowerPoint will automatically apply the theme to each slide. Be careful the theme doesn’t interfere with what you’ve put on each slide.
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Speaker Notes
Academic Depth
Speaker’s script
Facts and Figures
If you’re reading this, you are reading the “speaker notes” or just “notes” section. This section is critical. A speaker can print out the slides with the notes pages and use them while delivering the presentation. Go to File -> Print and you’ll see the option to print “Notes Pages” under “Print Layout.”
The bullets on the slides just introduce the topic, like a billboard on the side of the highway. You’ll need to use the notes section to fully comply with the need for academic depth. Whether you’re completing an assignment in PowerPoint or writing a paper in Word, the same level of academic depth is required. When PowerPoint presentations are viewed in Slide Show mode, the audience will not see these notes. They are here to allow you to write a script for the speaker to follow, as well as provide pertinent facts, figures and research sources.
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Wrapping it up
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. — Lee Iacocca
Questions/Discussion
The last slide in the presentation wraps up what you’ve communicated and moves on to the next thing, often a Q&A session or open discussion. How you close your presentation is up to you, and requires some thought on what you were trying to accomplish. If it’s a simple informative presentation, then something like this slide is effective. If you’ve been making a sales pitch or advocating a strong position, the wrap up slide can often be more effective if you incorporate some really persuasive bottom line statement or fact. It will be the last visual that your audience gets before open discussion begins or your meeting adjourns.
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References
Apperson, J. M., Laws, E. L., & Scepansky, J. A. (2008). An assessment of student preferences for PowerPoint presentation structure in undergraduate courses. Computers & Education, 50(1), 148-153.
The last slide in the presentation wraps up what you’ve communicated and moves on to the next thing, often a Q&A session or open discussion. How you close your presentation is up to you, and requires some thought on what you were trying to accomplish. If it’s a simple informative presentation, then something like this slide is effective. If you’ve been making a sales pitch or advocating a strong position, the wrap up slide can often be more effective if you incorporate some really persuasive bottom line statement or fact. It will be the last visual that your audience gets before open discussion begins or your meeting adjourns.
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