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How to manage your PowerPoint presentation

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Using PowerPoint projections can often be helpful to you when you are presenting to a group of people. If, however, you do not carefully control your PowerPoint projection it can weaken instead of support your presentation. The key might be to work hard on how you move from one slide to another. Consider this extra handful of hints:

Hint no.1: Introduction before change of slide

You must introduce any slide you want to show before you show it. This will help the audience to focus attention on first you and then the slide. If you first change the slide and then introduce it afterwards, the audience will not know whether they should read the slide or listen to you.

Hint no.2: Eye contact before change of slide

The slides are just there to support what you say - not to replace you in any way. The attention must be on you and therefore you must maintain eye contact with the audience (and not look at the screen or anywhere else) right up until the moment that you plan to change to the next slide.

Hint no.3: No talking while changing slide

When you talk to the audience you must maintain eye contact but when changing the slide you need to watch what you are doing and therefore you should not talk while changing the slide. Do one thing at a time - so don't try to talk to the audience while changing slides. Talk or change the slide - not both at the same time.

Hint no.4: First explanation, then interpretation

Once the new slide is displayed it is important to carefully explain what's presented on the slide before providing any interpretation on what this means. For example, you must explain each element of any graphics or matrix before explaining what this graphic or matrix means. You may have seen the slide many times before, but for the audience it is the first time, so don't' assume anything, explain instead.

Hint no.5: Control the changing of slides yourself

The hints mentioned above can really only work for you if you change the slides yourself. Don't leave that to anyone else. So before you agree to make any presentation you must make sure that you will be able to control the changing of the slides (on a laptop in front of you, via a remote control, etc.) from the beginning to the end.

Source: Gene Zelazny, 2000

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