How to Make an Academic Power

Point
English for Mechanical Engineering

Anggara Jatu Kusumawati, S.S., M.A.

anggarajatu@uii.ac.id
(WA: 081578188980)
Bad slides, delivered badly will make
your audience regret their second
serving at the buffet.
BUILD YOUR SLIDES LAST

• You could be tempted to start

Your slides are there t monkeying with slides early in your
o ADD to a well-desi speech writing process – don’t.
gned speech,
not replace it. • It’s like building a road – until you
know where that road is heading
there’s no point laying down
sidewalks and planting trees.
DON’T TRY TO REPLACE YOU
• People come to listen to you –
your thoughts, interpretations
and insights. Fancy transitions,
YouTube clips, and tons of text
steal from your content and
delivery.
• Remember: every time you hit
that clicker the audience leaves
you and goes to the screen.
USE A CONSISTENT THEME
• A consistent theme pulls
together the variety in your
images and message, as you
move from problem to solution.
• Create a custom theme simply
with titles, a consistent white
background, and sometimes with
our logo or client’s logo.
 MORE IMAGE, LESS TEXT
• Make your images larger and
reduce the text
• Add to your speech – not
distract the audience away
from you
• A short list of brief bullets
helps your audience follow
your argument – nothing more.
 ONE STORY PER SLIDE
• Tell a complexity of the message
• Each slide represents a complete
story
• Present statistics (sparingly), recall
an experience that leads to a
lesson, or teach a lesson
• Always stick to one story per slide
REVEAL ONE BULLET AT A TIME
• The trick when presenting text, like a short
list of bullets, is to make your point without
losing the audience.
• One technique is to reveal one bullet at a
time.
• In PowerPoint, right click on your text box,
select Custom Animation > Add Entrance
Effect and then choose the effect you want.
• In Keynote, click Animate > Build in and
choose the effect you want.
LEAVE THE FIREWORKS TO DISNEY
• It’s great that you know how to turn text into flames and make images
spin – but leave those fireworks to Disney. Your job is to make you the
star. Simple transitions, clean fonts and large, attractive graphics
trumps PowerPoint tricks, every time.
 USE THE 2/4/8 RULE
• the 2/4/8 rule: every 2
minutes I have a new
slide, 4 bullets per slide,
and 8 words per bullet.
• Just like any recipe, use
the 2/4/8 rule as a
guide and then vary the
ingredients as needed.
 FADE TO BLACK WHEN SPEAKING
• Your slides are not the point
—you are.
• It’s no different than a close-
up in a movie – the director
wants you to focus only on
the speaker.
10. WHEN IN DOUBT, DUMP IT

• slides can be essential –

they can also be a
distraction.
• “Will slide make my speech
better?” If not, I dump it.
--The end--