Guidelines for PowerPoint Presentations
SAVE your URL links to your Director folder. Save photos to your Director Study folder in your H Drive.
Content:
Title slide: The first slide should show the title of your project, your name, the class name, instructor and
year.
Introduction: Begin with the most interesting item of information about your director; not “My director
is…or I did my report on..”. Then provide an overview about what you will be covering.
Body: Provides the pertinent details of your research. These are short points of the information you will
enlarge upon in your oral presentation and will provide for your audience to use as an outline. Include
vocabulary that you didn’t know or think they might not know.
Graphics: Include all relevant graphics; these are your saved photos. Make sure they are as large as
possible for easy viewing—one photo to a slide. Insert them—the original should be saved in your HDrive, Director Study folder. Do not stretch or distort them.
 To insert a photo click on insert and then picture. Always insert a photo; don’t copy and paste it.
 Drag a corner selection of the photo while holding shift to keep the proportion the same.
 To resize multiple photos hold down shift and click on different pictures. Let go of shift and then drag
the corners until they are the size you want.
 Don’t use a photo as a background; it makes the text hard to read and often distorts the photo
General Guidelines and Appearance:
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Computer presentations should not contain full paragraphs of text. Use a bulleted list or outline
format and elaborate on the points in your talk.
Every slide should contain a title that summarizes the information presented on the slide.
Type that is projected on a screen should be in sans serif type (like Arial or Helvetica). This is because
in the projection process letters lose some of their sharpness, and serif type (like Times) can look
muddy when projected.
Use large fonts, as big as realistically possible. Small fonts are hard to read. Along the same lines,
don't put more than a few lines of text on a slide.
Use contrasting colors and either a dark background with light text or a light background with dark
text.
Avoid busy backgrounds that will make the text hard to read. Keep the background simple.
AVOID ALL CAPS! All caps look like you're shouting.
Include a good combination of words, pictures and graphics. Variety keeps the presentation
interesting.
Style when presenting:
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DO NOT read from the slide--vary your choice of words.
DO NOT talk to the screen; maintain eye contact with the audience.
Speak loudly and articulate.