Document Design

'What is good power point presentation?’ Is it the amount of graphic aids we put or the points or how we explain the points and graphics?

After my group's  PowerPoint presentation, there are a few problems that we have encountered. According to Russell (n. d), her third tip for creating successful business presentations is to limit punctuations and avoid all capital letters. In our slides, we have used capital letters in one slide which can be seen below.This can be seen as shouting to the audience.

Since our slides are based on Reep (2006), we should have chosen a better graphic aid to explain her theory of Proportion more clearly to the audience. As Marquez (2010) has stated in his article ‘How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation,’ a graphic aid should help explain the presentation better and to grab the audience’s attention.

Putnis and Petelin (1996) have stated effective good writing is to be determined by the current situation and audience. Our presentation slides are made to explain to our classmates and lecturer about Diana Reep’s Principles of Design since we are learning about current issues in publishing and designing for pages. 

Rothman (2005) contends that technical writing should be specific and include all details but this statement is going against Russell’s (n. d) first tip which is to use key points about the topic to put into your slides. Russell (n. d) stated that only three to four points of the topic should be put into PowerPoint slides.

Therefore, our slides can be improved by reducing our use of capital letters and using more suitable graphic aids. Our presentation slides are improving because it is made to give our classmates a basic view on Diana Reep’s Principles of Design and we followed Russell’s (n. d) tip on simplifying our slides instead of putting every detail in which was proposed by Rothman (2005).  

Reference list

Marquez, Z 2010, How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation, Ezine Articles, viewed on 27 March 2011, < http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178>.

Marquez, Z 2010, 8 Fatal Errors in Creating Presentation Slides, Ezine Articles, viewed on 27 March 2011, <http://ezinearticles.com/?8-Fatal-Errors-in-Creating-Presentation-Slides&id=4340264> .

Putnis, P and Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications,ch. 7, pp. 223-263, viewed on 27 March 2011.

Reep, D 2006, Chapter 6: Document Design, 6^th edn, pp. 133-172, viewed on 27 March 2011.

Rothman, S 2005, What Makes Good Scientific and Technical Writing? , Yahoo! Contributor Network, viewed on 27 March 2011, < http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9447/error > .

Russell, W n. d., 10 Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations, About.com Guide, viewed on 27 March 2011, < http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm>.