Bullets

[fj]

They always tell you to put minimal text on presentation slides, especially for points that you will present as well verbally. Certainly do not make your PowerPoint a written copy of what you want to say. But that never addresses that the last 7 'presentations' I made got presented maybe only once, if ever, but were mostly passed around as a sort of e-mail brochure to read alone from a screen. It's kinda hard to make a presentation that works as both a presentation and a hand-out.

Comments

[qnetter]

I have the same tendencies, but am trying to train myself to make at least 10% of my slides completely wordless.

It depends on what you're presenting -- if the goal is to take people's technical notes for them -- to show them command line syntax, for instance -- text is unavoidable. But if you're presenting to influence, a much, much more graphical approach is in order. I'm not sure you can over-rely on graphics -- though you certainly can overuse "animations and other dancing baloney." Again, it depends on the audience and the level of information. (Lessig's "Change Congress" pitch is a good example of an essentially graphics-only presentation that really works -- though I'm extending the concept of "graphics-only" here to include phrases, but no bullets. The approach moves even more responsibility to the speaker -- but i'm sure you are that good. I am too, on my best days.)