1. Bullets and phrases: When I conduct public speaking training, I always remind my audience to keep their PowerPoint slides easy to read. Pretend you're on the interstate where someone could read the information driving 55 miles per hour. Bullets work best as they are easier to read than sentences. Also, you are less likely to read the slides this way. The biggest rule with PowerPoint slides is to keep them big, bold, and simple. Your slides should resemble a billboard. No more than 6 bullets per slide and 6 to 8 words per line. Stick to three colors per PowerPoint slide, otherwise your audience will start focusing more on color and less on your content.
2. Font choices: Often, people come up to me privately in my public speaking training seminars and confide that many of their colleagues use ?print that is too small for anyone to read.? They secretly urge me to tell everyone attending that the print must be large enough to read the PowerPoint slide. In addition, I'm often told by the person who hires me that many of their employees put too much information on their slides. With public speaking and visual aids, less is more.
Pick simple fonts, but make certain they're large enough to read for people in the back rows. The print size should be at least a 28 font for titles and at least 22 point for other text. Simple fonts with clean lines are much easier to read. For instance, Times New Roman, Gothic and Verdana are good choices. Within those font families you have the ability to enhance a page using italics and bold, just go easy on the underlines. And never put letters in all capitals. Instead, use upper and lower case lettering. It is much easier to read, and doesn't look like you're shouting.
3.Color and contrast: Take into consideration the size of the room in which you'll be speaking. Will everyone in that last row be able to read the information on your PowerPoint slides? In order to assist them in reading what's on screen, choose soft ?easy-on-the-eyes? background colors such as light blue or turquoise blue. For lettering, choose a contrasting color differing from your background such as white, black or navy. For example, use light lettering on a dark background, or dark lettering against a light background. Never use all sentences in black print against a plain white background. It is boring and no one will read it.
Public speaking and the cardinal rule: you never want to read what's on the screen. After all, you are the presenter. Your audience assumes you're the expert. Also, when you read what's on your slides, mostly likely your back is to the audience. They won't focus on you. They'll just lose focus and start thinking about other things. Therefore, use bullets and phrases as opposed to sentences on your slides and in handouts. Think of what's on your slides only as ?fast food for the eyes.?
In my public speaking training, I frequentlly see highly educated, knowledgeable people trying to cram too much information on a single slide. This is especially true when presenting technical material.Technical people have a propensity to put too many words, charts, colors and graphs on a single slide. Know your material, yet keep it simple. Practice. Rehearse with your PowerPoint slides. Get honest feedback from your friends, family members and colleagues. You can do it. Good luck!
Copyright 2006 Colleen Kettenhofen
At its core, public speaking is not about your image or ego. It is about communicating a message and that means connecting with an audience.
Here are seven ways of creating an experience that will wow audiences and make sure they come away with your message:
1. Respect Your Audience.This means you view your audience as your equals. You neither look down on them nor crawl before them in hopes of winning their approval. You make some effort to find out what information they already have. That way, you can offer a presentation that gives them something new and does not insult their intelligence.
2. Listen to the Audience. Communication is a two-way street. Even when you are the only one talking, your audience will communicate with you through facial expressions and body language. Listen to these communications, so that you can give the audience what they need. If you see a lot of confused looks, slow down, back up and repeat your last statement. If you see sleepy body language, speak up, use gestures and visual aids to inject energy into the room.
3. Maximize Learning. The most effective speeches cover enough material to be engaging, but not too much. Ideally, you should make three to five clear points, but never more than seven. Give an overview of the main points in your introduction and a recap of them in your conclusion. The rest of your material should be facts that accurately support those points. If you can state the main points concisely, your audience can learn them.
4. Speak Their Language.In most cases, the shortest, most direct words are the best. However, there are some situations that call for academic, technical or other jargon. Even in the most academic settings though, listeners appreciate easy to remember words and phrases. Unless you are a comedian with a very tolerant audience, absolutely avoid profane or crude language.
5. Make Them Comfortable.Make the audience stiff and unresponsive by memorizing your speech. As much as possible, speak as if you are having a conversation with a very comfortable friend about something you care about. That does not mean being loud and obnoxious: it means you capture the feeling of sharing something you are excited about. If you think your topic is not exciting, do some work to identify why it is important. This helps your audience feel comfortable with you and enthusiastic about your topic.
6. Show Them What You Are Talking About. Use high-quality visual aids to help drive your message home. It does not need to be complicated. For instance, a talk about the life of Benjamin Franklin would benefit from something as simple as his portrait. Other aids are PowerPoint slides with a minimum of text listing your main points or slides of art prints.
7. Be Honest. When you give a presentation, you are trying to change something about your audience like increase their knowledge, change their beliefs or habits and convince them to take a particular action. A great speaker does any or all of that by giving an ethical speech. That means you avoid plagiarism, falsehood or exaggeration. Even in a persuasive speech, you never try to force, coerce or deceive. What you want is to teach and convince with clean, logical argument and concrete evidence.
Connecting with an audience is an art with foundational rules like any other art. You have learned these seven methods in just a few minutes. You can devote a lifetime to mastering them and so become a truly great public speaker.
Both Colleen Kettenhofen & Ranju Kumar are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Colleen Kettenhofen has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fitness, Difficult people and Leadership. Colleen Kettenhofen is a professional speaker, and workplace expert/co-author of "The Masters of Success," as featured on the Today Show. For more free articles and to sign up for her free newsletter on topics such as procrastination, difficult people, l. Colleen Kettenhofen's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.
Ranju Kumar has sinced written about articles on various topics from Affiliate Programs, Supplements and Accounting Bookkeeping General Svc. Ranju is assistant editor at MindPower Marketing, which helps entrepreneurs and independent professionals to earn more by making their marketing and communication more persuasive. For tips on more persuasive communication, sign up for the free eclass. Ranju Kumar's top article generates over 301000 views. to your Favourites.