What You Shouldn’t Do in a PowerPoint

By Dr. Julie Byerley

Don’t Put Too Much Text On One Slide Don’t put too much text on one slide (or one bullet) because it just

seems to drone on and on and on and on and it really drives people crazy because they start to try and read it and it just seems so long and annoying so you should just make it short and snappy or else you should’ve written a novel instead of a PowerPoint and it keeps going on and people start to (Yawn) snooze and fall asleep…fall asleep…and then you get back to a fun part and they pop right back up and then they fall asleep…asleep…and people get really annoyed and they don’t learn anything even the most mature adults could have enough attention span that they won’t be rudely tapping their toes and looking at their watches (yeah, I see you back there) so back to my story about how long and annoying a really long slide can be I mean people just seem to snooze through it and you never get anything done and people groan and moan because you drone on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and oh you get the point!

No Annoying Animations and Sounds!

You shouldn’t put too many annoying animations and sounds in a professional PowerPoint. As a doctor, it is extremely important to look professional and not look like a fifth grader did your work for you.

Whose phone is that?

Colors and Backgrounds

Be careful with contrast in the colors. When colors are not too far off it’s hard to

read.

Also be careful with what background you choose.

Use a simple font

Some people think different fonts are pretty but in truth they are very hard to read.

Also be careful with underlining

ESPN Top 20, 2007-8

1 North Carolina (23) 32-2 767 1

2 UCLA (5) 31-3 735 2

3 Memphis (3) 33-1 728 3

4 Kansas 31-3 682 5

5 Wisconsin 29-4 630 6

6 Tennessee 29-4 616 4

7 Texas 28-6 581 8

8 Georgetown 27-5 538 9

9 Duke 27-5 535 7

10 Butler 29-3 499 10

11 Stanford 26-7 476 11

12 Xavier 27-6 373 12

13 Louisville 24-8 358 13

14 Drake 28-4 310 18

15 Notre Dame 24-7 309 14

16 Vanderbilt 26-7 246 17

17 UConn 24-8 239 15

18 Purdue 24-8 218 16

19 Pittsburgh 26-9 216 NR

20 Michigan State 25-8 194 19

Conclusion • You are the show…not your slides • Let your slides support you