a presentation is a collection of

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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The Definition of a Slide (or Slides) in a PowerPoint Presentation

A PowerPoint slide is a single page or screen within a presentation. A presentation consists of multiple slides arranged in a sequence. Each slide typically focuses on one key point and contains related visuals and text.

What is a Slide?

Some key things to know about slides:

Types of Slides

Title slide, agenda slide.

The agenda outlines what you will cover in the presentation. It helps the audience know what to expect.

Content Slides

Summary slide, thank you slide.

The thank you slide wraps up your presentation and provides contact details for follow up.

Anatomy of a Slide

Slide layout.

The theme applies color schemes, fonts, and effects consistently across all the slides.

Visuals like images, charts, diagrams, and icons reinforce your verbal message.

Text gives essential details and context to support the title and visuals. Use concise bullet points rather than paragraphs.

Creating Slides in PowerPoint

PowerPoint makes creating professional slides simple. Here is the basic process:

Presentation Slides vs Presentation Decks

The terms “slide” and “deck” are sometimes used interchangeably, but there is a difference:

Key Takeaways

About the author, vegaslide staff, related posts, how to work on a powerpoint with a group, how to crop images using microsoft powerpoint, how to change the background of powerpoint slides, easily convert powerpoint to keynote.

• Certifications

PowerPoint Slide Elements: Best Practices and Tips

• December 27, 2022
• 18 Comments

The Learning Hour* – Week 11 : PowerPoint Slide Elements

Posted by  Ashish Agarwal

A PowerPoint slide is the fundamental building block of a Presentation. A PowerPoint presentation is simply a collection of different slides arranged in a logical manner to effectively communicate a story.

So then, what are the main components of building a slide?  We look at the 5 most important elements which needs to be there on any slide.

1.  Slide Title

Always start creating a powerpoint slide with the Slide Title. Think of it as the key message or insight that you would like to present on the slide. Ideally , there should be only 1 main message on each slide. The slide title should be crisp and concise to effectively communicate the key message. It should be written in a powerful way such that the audience understands the message without having to read the main content of the slide. The slide title should present the slide synthesis of the main so what from the content on the slide. Remember, not a summary regurgitating the same facts which are on the slide but helping the audience move from facts to the most important so what from that single slide.

2. Charts/Graphs

There are a number of data related PowerPoint charts that is in-built to represent numerical information. Use them extensively to illustrate numbers and quantitative information. You can choose from a number of chart options like Line Chart, Pie Chart, Waterfall chart, Bubble Chart, etc. Be careful to use the right chart for the right data. Using the right charts for financial data helps to enhance the visual communication of the powerpoint slide. 

Gone are the days where you would use a PowerPoint slide to put lots of text on it. No one reads those slides anymore. Instead, use TEXT comments sparingly to only indicate the main point. Choose a big font size of at least 24 to ensure your audience can easily read the slides. If you must use bullets, not more than 3-5 bullets on a slide. You can also use Smart-Arts to represent text based information on the slide. Ensure you follow basic presentation tips that will make the reader engaged with reading the information on your slide.

4. Images/Icons

Use Images and Icons to reinforce a point and not just to jazz up the powerpoint slide. Images are a great way to capture the attention and effectively communicate with the audience. There are a number of websites that allow you to download high quality images and icons. So, make the most of them. Sometimes you many need a paid subscription to access these images but there are lots of free websites as well that will allow you stock images in PowerPoint.

5. Footnotes/Source:

Be sure to add any important footnotes or source on the slide. Footnotes and source complete a slide with any extra information that the audience should be aware of. If there is a source of information that you would want to call out on a slide, footnotes are the best place to put it. They serve to improve the authenticity of the presentation with the right attribution provided.

So as you can see, the above 5 elements are extremely crucial to make a slide in PowerPoint. These 5 elements are part of any slide and if we do each of them well, the overall slide looks compelling and helps us to convey the right piece of information to the audience.

What else do you use? Put your thoughts in the comments below.

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18 thoughts on “powerpoint slide elements: best practices and tips”.

[…] it much more difficult for you to find specific data once you have it alphabetized. – Use conditional formatting to help highlight certain data – For example, if you track your expenses in Excel, you might […]

[…] Enhanced production value such as superior cinematography, crisp audio-engaging visuals on PowerPoint slides, and polished editing, can elevate the viewer’s experience, making your content more […]

[…] can now add any typeface that you own as an external font so that it can be used anywhere in your PowerPoint slides. Here’s […]

[…] are the most basic elements of a flowchart. These are the square boxes, arrows, circles, and other basic shapes that are used to create […]

[…] font from Times New Roman to something a little more interesting, for example, will make your whole presentation look a lot more […]

[…] example, if you have a PowerPoint slide about your company’s vision, it would be helpful to summarize what your business is trying to […]

[…] is not an easy affair.As a financial analyst, one needs to master the art of tactfully playing with powerpoint slide elements to represent his/her thoughts beautifully through the PowerPoint Presentation. Designing a […]

[…] animations are used to introduce objects onto a PowerPoint slide . To apply Entrance Animation to an object, first select the object. Then click the Animations Tab. […]

[…] In the realm of presentations, every detail matters. From the choice of colours to the arrangement of elements, each component contributes to the overall impact of your message. One often overlooked yet critical aspect of presentation design is alignment. Alignment in PowerPoint refers to the positioning or arrangement of elements in a specific order or configuration. In technology, computing, programming, and communications, alignment often refers to the arrangement of text, images, or other objects on a digital platform. From the outset, it’s evident that proper alignment is vital for visual appeal. Good alignment organizes elements, making them easy to read and aesthetically pleasing. The alignment tools in Microsoft PowerPoint are indispensable for crafting professional and attractive presentations. These tools ensure that objects like text boxes, images, shapes, and charts are consistently and neatly positioned. Proper alignment leads to a cohesive and polished appearance for your powerpoint slide elements. […]

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PowerPoint Quiz: How Much You Know About MS Powerpoint?

Welcome to the MS PowerPoint Quiz! Think you know everything about creating stunning presentations? This quiz will test your knowledge of MS PowerPoint, the powerful presentation software. From mastering slide transitions to utilizing multimedia elements, this quiz will challenge your understanding of PowerPoint's features and functionalities. Whether you're a seasoned presenter or just getting started, this quiz is designed to help you assess your knowledge and discover new tips and tricks. Let's dive in and see how much you truly know about MS PowerPoint! If you like this quiz, share it with your friends. All the best!

A symbol such as a heavy dot or another character that precedes text in a presentation is called a(n) ____.

Rate this question:

A slide that consists of more than one level of bulleted text is called a ____ bulleted list slide.

Extra-level

Multi-level

Super-level

The ____ rule states that each slide should have ample space to rest the eyes.

Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thumb

Rule of Thunder

Rule of Thor

To print a presentation using shortcut keys, press ____.

To start powerpoint, click the start button on the windows taskbar, point to programs, and then select ____..

Accessories

Microsoft Office Tools

Microsoft PowerPoint

Start PowerPoint

A ____ ends all slide shows unless the option setting is deselected.

Black slide

Blank slide

Closing slide

A separate window within the application that provides a list of commonly used commands is called a ____.

Common commands pane

Move handle

When you drag the scroll box, the ____ displays the number and title of the slide you are about to display.

Next slide button

Slide indicator

Zoom box arrow

To maintain balance and simplicity in your presentation, designers recommend using a maximum of ____ fonts and two font styles or effects.

You will use ____ when making a presentation..

PowerPoint viewer

Scroll bars

Slide show view

Voice commands

To access the PowerPoint Help system using the keyboard, press ____.

A(n) ____ is the basic unit of a powerpoint presentation..

Placeholder

To start a slide show using the keyboard, press ____.

Underline, shadow, emboss, superscript, and subscript are all examples of text ____., the best way to get a slide show to stop is to:.

Click STOP button

Exit PowerPoint

Tell the computer to STOP.

It is a collection of data and information that is to be delivered to a specific audience. 

A presentation

Effective presentation

PowerPoint presentation

Slideshow presentation

It is a collection of electronic slides that can have text, pictures, graphics, tables, sound, and video. This collection can run automatically or can be controlled by a presenter.

Controlled presentation

Oral Presentation

This button allows you to create a new presentation, open an existing presentation, save and save as, print, send, or close.

Microsoft Office button

Open button

PowerPoint button

These are design templates that can be applied to an entire presentation that, allows for consistency throughout the presentation. 

These are effects that are in place when you switch from one slide to the next. .

Transitions

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• How to Make an Oral Presentation
• Office of Research

Undergraduate Research

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Steps to Plan Your Presentation

Delivering an effective oral presentation is an essential skill for sharing your research findings with an audience. Tailoring your presentation to your audience, preparing for technical issues, and engaging your listeners with clear, concise content are crucial for the success of your research project. This guide provides comprehensive advice on how to prepare, what to include, and common pitfalls to avoid, ensuring your presentation is impactful and memorable.

For further assistance, contact the Office of Undergraduate Research for individual consultations.

What You Need To Know

 Purpose

The purpose of an oral presentation is to share your research with an audience, typically through PowerPoint or Prezi. It is typically a synopsis of your research. If you've conducted a study, you will probably address the following topics:

• Background research on your topic (with citations to past studies)
• The rationale for your study (how does your study address a gap in the literature?)
• Hypotheses/research questions
• Methodology
• Results (graphs are more interesting than tables or words)
• Conclusions (for example, the implications or applications of your research, limitations, future research directions, a concise summary of your main findings, concluding thoughts)
• References and Acknowledgements (such as grant support, a faculty advisor if he/she is not an author on the presentation, assistance from others who are not listed as authors)

If your scholarship is in a different form (e.g., a film analysis, a presentation of a creative work), the structure will likely be a little different, but in all cases, it should be clear to the audience what the main goals of your research are, why it's important to do this work, and what you found in your research.  

Preparation

• First, make sure you know how much time you have; it is common for oral presentations at conferences to exceed the time limit. Prepare a presentation that is a little shorter than the allotted time to allow for questions and other comments.
• Think about your audience: Will they understand technical terms, jargon, and acronyms? Will they be mostly undergraduates or professors in the field? You should tailor your presentation to your expected audience.
• Think carefully about your central message. What do you want the audience to know by the end of your presentation? Most people will only remember a few take-home points from your carefully constructed presentation (if that!). There's no point in getting bogged down in minutia that the audience can't really process anyway.
• The most important parts are the beginning (to draw the audience in) and the ending (to wrap up, to inspire). Put some thought into how to make these parts of your presentation have impact.
• Think about your speaking style; can you speak loudly and clearly? Can you modulate your voice appropriately, or do you tend to sound monotone when you give presentations? Consider working on your public speaking skills if it's needed; consider joining Legacy Owls Toastmasters Club  for this purpose and check out Toastmasters International public speaking tips .

 Plan for the Unexpected

• Will the conference provide computers or do you bring your own laptop?
• Will there be internet available?
• How reliable is the internet?
• Will there be speakers or a way to use audio (if necessary)?
• Back up your presentation in at least two places (e.g., flash drive, Dropbox, email it to yourself).
• When you prepare a presentation on a Mac and then use a PC (or vice versa), be aware that sometimes things look different.
• Bring a printed copy in case the technology fails, or have a tablet/laptop with you.
• Find the room early, and check out the technology so you’re familiar with it.

What to Avoid

It is usually not required that you use visuals for your presentation, but a PowerPoint or Prezi can often help the audience follow along with your research.

If you use PowerPoint or Prezi:

• Avoid the temptation to put too much text on your slides; the audience can get bored or overwhelmed and might not be able to clearly see all the words if you've used a small font (less than 20-pt is considered "small"). 
• Avoid font types that are hard to read or look unprofessional.
• Avoid putting words on a busy powerpoint background that makes the words hard to read.
• Avoid using font color that doesn't contrast with the background (in other words, your audience can't read gray text on a black background). 
• Avoid tables and graphs that have too much information - you can recreate those tables and graphs with just the most important information instead.

Also, consider your verbal and physical presentation:

• Avoid reading your slides to the audience.
• Avoid reading from prepared notes; the audience will maintain interest better if you can speak extemporaneously directly to them. It's also hard to make eye contact with the audience if you are reading.
• Avoid distracting behaviors or verbal tics (“um,” “like,” “uh”).
• Dress appropriately for the occasion.
• Consider your body language (e.g., arms crossed can come across as you not wanting to be there).

Ways to Stand Out

• Embrace a "Presentation Zen" style: simple (not simplistic), clean, and powerful.
• Have interesting, high-resolution images on your slides.
• You could connect your research to recent events (perhaps asking the audience to summarize the recent event).
• You could ask specific questions throughout the presentation.
• You could poll the audience on a topic relevant to your presentation (perhaps even using a free resource such as Socrative or Poll Everywhere ).
• You could insert a powerful quote into your presentation (perhaps at the beginning or end).
• You can show a short video to illustrate something important about your topic.
• The point is not to be gimmicky; the point is to keep your audience interested and engaged (especially when the audience has been listening to oral presentations all day and might be tired). Be aware, though, that different disciplines have different conventions regarding what is and is not appropriate for an oral presentation; be sure to ask your research advisor for advice first.
• Showing enthusiasm for their work
• Being energetic
• Using emphasis on certain words
• Using hand gestures to keep the audience engaged

Handling Audience Questions

• Be sure to leave some time at the end.
• If a questioner is soft-spoken, repeat the question so everyone hears.
• Avoid long, meandering answers.
• Don’t make something up if you don’t know an answer. Offer to look it up and get back to the person, and be open to someone in the audience knowing the answer.
• Give positive reinforcement to questioners (smiling, nodding, “that’s a good question”).
• If someone is attacking you or otherwise being rude, remember that this usually comes from someone who wants to show off or appear smart in front of everyone The other audience members will recognize the rudeness and be on your side! Stay calm, answer as best you can, and acknowledge it when he/she makes a good point (smiling and nodding can disarm an attacker).
• People will often talk to you right afterwards; try to avoid running out right after your presentation if you can help it.
• Audience members may email for a copy of your presentation or to ask further questions; be sure to follow up with them.

Conclusions

If you have been accepted to present your research at a conference, congratulations! This is a great honor, and you should be proud of this accomplishment. If you would like an individual consultation with someone from the Office of Undergraduate Research about your presentation, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] .

Other online resources to check out include:

• Presentation Tips (Prepare, Design, Deliver)
• 18 Tips for Killer Presentations

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Power Point presentation is a collection of

Power Point presentation is a collection of ________

A. Slides and Handouts

B. Speaker’s notes

C. Outlines

D. All of the above

Answer: Option D

This Question Belongs to Computer Fundamentals >> Power Point

Join The Discussion

Related Questions on Power Point

Which tab is not available on left panel when you open a presentation?

D. All of above are available

Which of the following statements is not true?

A. You can type text directly into a PowerPoint slide but typing in text box is more convenient.

B. From Insert menu choose Picture and then File to insert your images into slides.

C. You can view a PowerPoint presentation in Normal, Slide Sorter or Slide Show view.

D. You can show or hide task pane from View >> Toolbars.

To start Microsoft PowerPoint application

A. Click on Start > Programs > All Programs > Microsoft PowerPoint

B. Hit Ctrl + R then type ppoint.exe and Enter

C. Click Start > Run then type powerpnt then press Enter

D. All of above

Which of the following section does not exist in a slide layout?

D. Animations

More Related Questions on Power Point

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From Ideas to Impactful Presentations

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Ideas & Resources

Uncover a world of innovative ideas, creative insights, and design tips to enhance your PowerPoint and Google Slides presentations.

How to Convert Presentations from Google Slides to PowerPoint

Mastering Text Emphasis in Your Presentation: Tips and Techniques

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How to Ace Your Sales Presentation in 10 Steps

Presentationgo – 2,644 free google slides themes and powerpoint templates.

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Power Point presentation is a collection of ________________.

Correct option is d. all of the above.

The collection is a set or not a set ? The collection of all the points of a circle.

The collection of all points in a plane which is equidistant from a fixed point is a

• Chapter Seven: Presenting Your Results

This chapter serves as the culmination of the previous chapters, in that it focuses on how to present the results of one's study, regardless of the choice made among the three methods. Writing in academics has a form and style that you will want to apply not only to report your own research, but also to enhance your skills at reading original research published in academic journals. Beyond the basic academic style of report writing, there are specific, often unwritten assumptions about how quantitative, qualitative, and critical/rhetorical studies should be organized and the information they should contain. This chapter discusses how to present your results in writing, how to write accessibly, how to visualize data, and how to present your results in person.  

• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Understanding the distinctions among research methods
• Chapter Three: Ethical research, writing, and creative work
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 2 - Doing Your Study)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 3 - Making Sense of Your Study)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Data (Part 2)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 2)

Written Presentation of Results

Once you've gone through the process of doing communication research – using a quantitative, qualitative, or critical/rhetorical methodological approach – the final step is to  communicate  it.

The major style manuals (the APA Manual, the MLA Handbook, and Turabian) are very helpful in documenting the structure of writing a study, and are highly recommended for consultation. But, no matter what style manual you may use, there are some common elements to the structure of an academic communication research paper.

Title Page :

This is simple: Your Paper's Title, Your Name, Your Institutional Affiliation (e.g., University), and the Date, each on separate lines, centered on the page. Try to make your title both descriptive (i.e., it gives the reader an idea what the study is about) and interesting (i.e., it is catchy enough to get one's attention).

For example, the title, "The uncritical idealization of a compensated psychopath character in a popular book series," would not be an inaccurate title for a published study, but it is rather vague and exceedingly boring. That study's author fortunately chose the title, "A boyfriend to die for: Edward Cullen as compensated psychopath in Stephanie Meyer's  Twilight ," which is more precisely descriptive, and much more interesting (Merskin, 2011). The use of the colon in academic titles can help authors accomplish both objectives: a catchy but relevant phrase, followed by a more clear explanation of the article's topic.

In some instances, you might be asked to write an abstract, which is a summary of your paper that can range in length from 75 to 250 words. If it is a published paper, it is useful to include key search terms in this brief description of the paper (the title may already have a few of these terms as well). Although this may be the last thing your write, make it one of the best things you write, because this may be the first thing your audience reads about the paper (and may be the only thing read if it is written badly). Summarize the problem/research question, your methodological approach, your results and conclusions, and the significance of the paper in the abstract.

Quantitative and qualitative studies will most typically use the rest of the section titles noted below. Critical/rhetorical studies will include many of the same steps, but will often have different headings. For example, a critical/rhetorical paper will have an introduction, definition of terms, and literature review, followed by an analysis (often divided into sections by areas of investigation) and ending with a conclusion/implications section. Because critical/rhetorical research is much more descriptive, the subheadings in such a paper are often times not generic subheads like "literature review," but instead descriptive subheadings that apply to the topic at hand, as seen in the schematic below. Because many journals expect the article to follow typical research paper headings of introduction, literature review, methods, results, and discussion, we discuss these sections briefly next.

Introduction:

As you read social scientific journals (see chapter 1 for examples), you will find that they tend to get into the research question quickly and succinctly. Journal articles from the humanities tradition tend to be more descriptive in the introduction. But, in either case, it is good to begin with some kind of brief anecdote that gets the reader engaged in your work and lets the reader understand why this is an interesting topic. From that point, state your research question, define the problem (see Chapter One) with an overview of what we do and don't know, and finally state what you will do, or what you want to find out. The introduction thus builds the case for your topic, and is the beginning of building your argument, as we noted in chapter 1.

By the end of the Introduction, the reader should know what your topic is, why it is a significant communication topic, and why it is necessary that you investigate it (e.g., it could be there is gap in literature, you will conduct valuable exploratory research, or you will provide a new model for solving some professional or social problem).

Literature Review:

The literature review summarizes and organizes the relevant books, articles, and other research in this area. It sets up both quantitative and qualitative studies, showing the need for the study. For critical/rhetorical research, the literature review often incorporates the description of the historical context and heuristic vocabulary, with key terms defined in this section of the paper. For more detail on writing a literature review, see Appendix 1.

The methods of your paper are the processes that govern your research, where the researcher explains what s/he did to solve the problem. As you have seen throughout this book, in communication studies, there are a number of different types of research methods. For example, in quantitative research, one might conduct surveys, experiments, or content analysis. In qualitative research, one might instead use interviews and observations. Critical/rhetorical studies methods are more about the interpretation of texts or the study of popular culture as communication. In creative communication research, the method may be an interpretive performance studies or filmmaking. Other methods used sometimes alone, or in combination with other methods, include legal research, historical research, and political economy research.

In quantitative and qualitative research papers, the methods will be most likely described according to the APA manual standards. At the very least, the methods will include a description of participants, data collection, and data analysis, with specific details on each of these elements. For example, in an experiment, the researcher will describe the number of participants, the materials used, the design of the experiment, the procedure of the experiment, and what statistics will be used to address the hypotheses/research questions.

Critical/rhetorical researchers rarely have a specific section called "methods," as opposed to quantitative and qualitative researchers, but rather demonstrate the method they use for analysis throughout the writing of their piece.

Helping your reader understand the methods you used for your study is important not only for your own study's credibility, but also for possible replication of your study by other researchers. A good guideline to keep in mind is  transparency . You want to be as clear as possible in describing the decisions you made in designing your study, gathering and analyzing your data so that the reader can retrace your steps and understand how you came to the conclusions you formed. A research study can be very good, but if it is not clearly described so that others can see how the results were determined or obtained, then the quality of the study and its potential contributions are lost.

After you completed your study, your findings will be listed in the results section. Particularly in a quantitative study, the results section is for revisiting your hypotheses and reporting whether or not your results supported them, and the statistical significance of the results. Whether your study supported or contradicted your hypotheses, it's always helpful to fully report what your results were. The researcher usually organizes the results of his/her results section by research question or hypothesis, stating the results for each one, using statistics to show how the research question or hypothesis was answered in the study.

The qualitative results section also may be organized by research question, but usually is organized by themes which emerged from the data collected. The researcher provides rich details from her/his observations and interviews, with detailed quotations provided to illustrate the themes identified. Sometimes the results section is combined with the discussion section.

Critical/rhetorical researchers would include their analysis often with different subheadings in what would be considered a "results" section, yet not labeled specifically this way.

Discussion:

In the discussion section, the researcher gives an appraisal of the results. Here is where the researcher considers the results, particularly in light of the literature review, and explains what the findings mean. If the results confirmed or corresponded with the findings of other literature, then that should be stated. If the results didn't support the findings of previous studies, then the researcher should develop an explanation of why the study turned out this way. Sometimes, this section is called a "conclusion" by researchers.

References:

In this section, all of the literature cited in the text should have full references in alphabetical order. Appendices: Appendix material includes items like questionnaires used in the study, photographs, documents, etc. An alphabetical letter is assigned for each piece (e.g. Appendix A, Appendix B), with a second line of title describing what the appendix contains (e.g. Participant Informed Consent, or  New York Times  Speech Coverage). They should be organized consistently with the order in which they are referenced in the text of the paper. The page numbers for appendices are consecutive with the paper and reference list.

Tables/Figures:

Tables and figures are referenced in the text, but included at the end of the study and numbered consecutively. (Check with your professor; some like to have tables and figures inserted within the paper's main text.) Tables generally are data in a table format, whereas figures are diagrams (such as a pie chart) and drawings (such as a flow chart).

Accessible Writing

As you may have noticed, academic writing does have a language (e.g., words like heuristic vocabulary and hypotheses) and style (e.g., literature reviews) all its own. It is important to engage in that language and style, and understand how to use it to  communicate effectively in an academic context . Yet, it is also important to remember that your analyses and findings should also be written to be accessible. Writers should avoid excessive jargon, or—even worse—deploying jargon to mask an incomplete understanding of a topic.

The scourge of excessive jargon in academic writing was the target of a famous hoax in 1996. A New York University physics professor submitted an article, " Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity ," to a special issue of the academic journal  Social Text  devoted to science and postmodernism. The article was designed to point out how dense academic jargon can sometimes mask sloppy thinking. As the professor, Alan Sokal, had expected, the article was published. One sample sentence from the article reads:

It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical "reality", no less than social "reality", is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific "knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities. (Sokal, 1996. pp. 217-218)

According to the journal's editor, about six reviewers had read the article but didn't suspect that it was phony. A public debate ensued after Sokal revealed his hoax. Sokal said he worried that jargon and intellectual fads cause academics to lose contact with the real world and "undermine the prospect for progressive social critique" ( Scott, 1996 ). The APA Manual recommends to avoid using technical vocabulary where it is not needed or relevant or if the technical language is overused, thus becoming jargon. In short, the APA argues that "scientific jargon...grates on the reader, encumbers the communication of information, and wastes space" (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 68).

Data Visualization

Images and words have long existed on the printed page of manuscripts, yet, until recently, relatively few researchers possessed the resources to effectively combine images combined with words (Tufte, 1990, 1983). Communication scholars are only now becoming aware of this dimension in research as computer technologies have made it possible for many people to produce and publish multimedia presentations.

Although visuals may seem to be anathema to the primacy of the written word in research, they are a legitimate way, and at times the best way, to present ideas. Visual scholar Lester Faigley et al. (2004) explains how data visualizations have become part of our daily lives:

Visualizations can shed light on research as well. London-based David McCandless specializes in visualizing interesting research questions, or in his words "the questions I wanted answering" (2009, p. 7). His images include a graph of the  peak times of the year for breakups  (based on Facebook status updates), a  radiation dosage chart , and some  experiments with the Google Ngram Viewer , which charts the appearance of keywords in millions of books over hundreds of years.

The  public domain image  below creatively maps U.S. Census data of the outflow of people from California to other states between 1995 and 2000.

Visualizing one's research is possible in multiple ways. A simple technology, for example, is to enter data into a spreadsheet such as Excel, and select  Charts  or  SmartArt  to generate graphics. A number of free web tools can also transform raw data into useful charts and graphs.  Many Eyes , an open source data visualization tool (sponsored by IBM Research), says its goal "is to 'democratize' visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis" (IBM, 2011). Another tool,  Soundslides , enables users to import images and audio to create a photographic slideshow, while the program handles all of the background code. Other tools, often open source and free, can help visual academic research into interactive maps; interactive, image-based timelines; interactive charts; and simple 2-D and 3-D animations. Adobe Creative Suite (which includes popular software like Photoshop) is available on most computers at universities, but open source alternatives exist as well.  Gimp  is comparable to Photoshop, and it is free and relatively easy to use.

One online performance studies journal,  Liminalities , is an excellent example of how "research" can be more than just printed words. In each issue, traditional academic essays and book reviews are often supported photographs, while other parts of an issue can include video, audio, and multimedia contributions. The journal, founded in 2005, treats performance itself as a methodology, and accepts contribution in html, mp3, Quicktime, and Flash formats.

For communication researchers, there is also a vast array of visual digital archives available online. Many of these archives are located at colleges and universities around the world, where digital librarians are spearheading a massive effort to make information—print, audio, visual, and graphic—available to the public as part of a global information commons. For example, the University of Iowa has a considerable digital archive including historical photos documenting American railroads and a database of images related to geoscience. The University of Northern Iowa has a growing Special Collections Unit that includes digital images of every UNI Yearbook between 1905 and 1923 and audio files of UNI jazz band performances. Researchers at he University of Michigan developed  OAIster , a rich database that has joined thousands of digital archives in one searchable interface. Indeed, virtually every academic library is now digitizing all types of media, not just texts, and making them available for public viewing and, when possible, for use in presenting research. In addition to academic collections, the  Library of Congress  and the  National Archives  offer an ever-expanding range of downloadable media; commercial, user-generated databases such as Flickr, Buzznet, YouTube and Google Video offer a rich resource of images that are often free of copyright constraints (see Chapter 3 about Creative Commons licenses) and nonprofit endeavors, such as the  Internet Archive , contain a formidable collection of moving images, still photographs, audio files (including concert recordings), and open source software.

Presenting your Work in Person

As Communication students, it's expected that you are not only able to communicate your research project in written form but also in person.

Before you do any oral presentation, it's good to have a brief "pitch" ready for anyone who asks you about your research. The pitch is routine in Hollywood: a screenwriter has just a few minutes to present an idea to a producer. Although your pitch will be more sophisticated than, say, " Snakes on a Plane " (which unfortunately was made into a movie), you should in just a few lines be able to explain the gist of your research to anyone who asks. Developing this concise description, you will have some practice in distilling what might be a complicated topic into one others can quickly grasp.

Oral presentation

In most oral presentations of research, whether at the end of a semester, or at a research symposium or conference, you will likely have just 10 to 20 minutes. This is probably not enough time to read the entire paper aloud, which is not what you should do anyway if you want people to really listen (although, unfortunately some make this mistake). Instead, the point of the presentation should be to present your research in an interesting manner so the listeners will want to read the whole thing. In the presentation, spend the least amount of time on the literature review (a very brief summary will suffice) and the most on your own original contribution. In fact, you may tell your audience that you are only presenting on one portion of the paper, and that you would be happy to talk more about your research and findings in the question and answer session that typically follows. Consider your presentation the beginning of a dialogue between you and the audience. Your tone shouldn't be "I have found everything important there is to find, and I will cram as much as I can into this presentation," but instead "I found some things you will find interesting, but I realize there is more to find."

Turabian (2007) has a helpful chapter on presenting research. Most important, she emphasizes, is to remember that your audience members are listeners, not readers. Thus, recall the lessons on speech making in your college oral communication class. Give an introduction, tell them what the problem is, and map out what you will present to them. Organize your findings into a few points, and don't get bogged down in minutiae. (The minutiae are for readers to find if they wish, not for listeners to struggle through.) PowerPoint slides are acceptable, but don't read them. Instead, create an outline of a few main points, and practice your presentation.

Turabian  suggests an introduction of not more than three minutes, which should include these elements:

• The research topic you will address (not more than a minute).
• Your research question (30 seconds or less)
• An answer to "so what?" – explaining the relevance of your research (30 seconds)
• Your claim, or argument (30 seconds or less)
• The map of your presentation structure (30 seconds or less)

As Turabian (2007) suggests, "Rehearse your introduction, not only to get it right, but to be able to look your audience in the eye as you give it. You can look down at notes later" (p. 125).

Poster presentation

In some symposiums and conferences, you may be asked to present at a "poster" session. Instead of presenting on a panel of 4-5 people to an audience, a poster presenter is with others in a large hall or room, and talks one-on-one with visitors who look at the visual poster display of the research. As in an oral presentation, a poster highlights just the main point of the paper. Then, if visitors have questions, the author can informally discuss her/his findings.

To attract attention, poster presentations need to be nicely designed, or in the words of an advertising professor who schedules poster sessions at conferences, "be big, bold, and brief" ( Broyles , 2011). Large type (at least 18 pt.), graphics, tables, and photos are recommended.

A poster presentation session at a conference, by David Eppstein (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 ( www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 )], via Wikimedia Commons]

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has a  template for making an effective poster presentation . Many universities, copy shops, and Internet services also have large-scale printers, to print full-color research poster designs that can be rolled up and transported in a tube.

Judging Others' Research

After taking this course, you should have a basic knowledge of research methods. There will still be some things that may mystify you as a reader of other's research. For example, you may not be able to interpret the coefficients for statistical significance, or make sense of a complex structural equation. Some specialized vocabulary may still be difficult.

But, you should understand how to critically review research. For example, imagine you have been asked to do a blind (i.e., the author's identity is concealed) "peer review" of communication research for acceptance to a conference, or publication in an academic journal. For most  conferences  and  journals , submissions are made online, where editors can manage the flow and assign reviews to papers. The evaluations reviewers make are based on the same things that we have covered in this book. For example, the conference for the AEJMC ask reviewers to consider (on a five-point scale, from Excellent to Poor) a number of familiar research dimensions, including the paper's clarity of purpose, literature review, clarity of research method, appropriateness of research method, evidence presented clearly, evidence supportive of conclusions, general writing and organization, and the significance of the contribution to the field.

Beyond academia, it is likely you will more frequently apply the lessons of research methods as a critical consumer of news, politics, and everyday life. Just because some expert cites a number or presents a conclusion doesn't mean it's automatically true. John Allen Paulos, in his book  A Mathematician reads the newspaper , suggests some basic questions we can ask. "If statistics were presented, how were they obtained? How confident can we be of them? Were they derived from a random sample or from a collection of anecdotes? Does the correlation suggest a causal relationship, or is it merely a coincidence?" (1997, p. 201).

Through the study of research methods, we have begun to build a critical vocabulary and understanding to ask good questions when others present "knowledge." For example, if Candidate X won a straw poll in Iowa, does that mean she'll get her party's nomination? If Candidate Y wins an open primary in New Hampshire, does that mean he'll be the next president? If Candidate Z sheds a tear, does it matter what the context is, or whether that candidate is a man or a woman? What we learn in research methods about validity, reliability, sampling, variables, research participants, epistemology, grounded theory, and rhetoric, we can consider whether the "knowledge" that is presented in the news is a verifiable fact, a sound argument, or just conjecture.

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Broyles, S. (2011). "About poster sessions." AEJMC.  http://www.aejmc.org/home/2013/01/about-poster-sessions/ .

Faigley, L., George, D., Palchik, A., Selfe, C. (2004).  Picturing texts . New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

IBM (2011). Overview of Many Eyes.  http://www.research.ibm.com/social/projects_manyeyes.shtml .

McCandless, D. (2009).  The visual miscellaneum . New York: Collins Design.

Merskin, D. (2011). A boyfriend to die for: Edward Cullen as compensated psychopath in Stephanie Meyer's  Twilight. Journal of Communication Inquiry  35: 157-178. doi:10.1177/0196859911402992

Paulos, J. A. (1997).  A mathematician reads the newspaper . New York: Anchor.

Scott, J. (1996, May 18). Postmodern gravity deconstructed, slyly.  New York Times , http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/15/specials/sokal-text.html .

Sokal, A. (1996). Transgressing the boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity.  Social Text  46/47, 217-252.

Tufte, E. R. (1990).  Envisioning information . Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Tufte, E. R. (1983).  The visual display of quantitative information . Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Turabian, Kate L. (2007).  A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations: Chicago style guide for students and researchers  (7th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Understand the difference between PowerPoint templates and themes

Themes and templates help you create content that looks attractive and consistent while avoiding lots of manual formatting.

In this article:

What is a theme?   |   What is a template?

What is a PowerPoint theme?

A theme is a predefined set of colors, fonts, and visual effects that you apply to your slides for a unified, professional look.

Using a theme gives your presentation a harmonious appearance with minimal effort. For example:

When you add graphics (tables, shapes, and so on) to your slides, PowerPoint applies theme colors that are compatible with other slide elements.

Dark-colored text is shown on a light background (and vice versa), so that contrast is strong for ease of reading.

Here are four different themes applied to the same slide:

To choose a theme for your presentation

PowerPoint offers several preset themes. They are on the Design tab of the Ribbon on the left side.

Open a slide. On the Design tab, point at a Theme thumbnail to get a preview of how it would affect the look of your slide.

To see the full gallery of themes, click the More button:

When you find a theme you want, click its thumbnail to apply it to all slides in your presentation.

To customize a theme, see Create your own theme in PowerPoint .

What is a PowerPoint template?

A template is a theme plus some content for a specific purpose—such as a sales presentation, a business plan, or a classroom lesson.

So a template has design elements that work together (colors, fonts, backgrounds, effects) along with sample slides and boilerplate content that you augment to tell your story.

You can create your own custom templates and store them, reuse them, and share them with others. See Create and save a PowerPoint template .

You can also find hundreds of different types of free templates for PowerPoint that you can apply to your presentation:

  Get pre-built PowerPoint templates at create.microsoft.com   

Create.Microsoft.com also has templates for other Office apps. Here are some examples of the free templates available there:

Here is an example of a one-slide template for an award certificate:

A template like this can include:

1 Subject-specific content, such as "Certificate of Achievement," "Soccer," and the soccer ball image. Generally this text or content is only editable from the slide master.

2 Background formatting, such as pictures, texture, gradient or solid fill color, and transparency. This example shows the light blue solid fill background.

3 Color, fonts, effects (3-D, lines, fills, shadows, etc.), and theme design elements (such as the color and gradient effects inside the word Soccer).

4 Text placeholders that allow people to enter unique information to customize the slide for their needs, such as "Player's name," "Name of coach," "Date of presentation," and any variable, such as the year.

Download free, pre-built templates

Create your own theme in PowerPoint

Create and save a PowerPoint template

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