Blog Prompt #2

In my opinion Power Point has been used to substitute presentations rather than supplement them as stated by Edward Tuft in "Power Point is Evil" . There have been countless presentations where students, in classes I have taken, read directly from their slide show presentations because all their information is bulleted and outlined for them to read. It shows they either do not know the information or simply do not care about it enough to learn it and use the Power Point to emphasize the information they already know and are trying to explain to an audience. It is a clear abuse of presentations when you do not need the speaker to understand the topic outlined by Power Point presentations as stated by Tuft. If the Power Point alone can teach an audience then why have the speaker? Power Point should help the presenter with images, graphs, or quotes to emphasize key topics within their speech/presentation. Garr Reynolds provides "Top Ten Slide Tips" to avoid audience boredom and improve presentations in the aesthetic aspect of the slide show. One of which is keeping a lot of negative space or white space in order to keep the listener focused on the information rather than the slides themselves. Setting up the slides requires a bit more thought because of the way the slides are laid out. The layout indirectly emphasize either information on slides or pictures depending on their placement. An example would be to place a picture on the left and bullets on the right, the bullets are secondary to the image which should provide a significant message if placed in that order.Other important aspects to consider when setting up the slide show are appropriate graphs, font , and color. These should not over whelm the presentation, instead they should complement it. According to Reynolds colors are important because they evoke feelings. The font used in the presentation should all be the same throughout the speech and not exceed more than two complementary fonts (i.e. Italic or Bold) so as not to distract your audience. And charts and graphs should not overwhelm the audience with too much data or colors. In the New York Times the article "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint" a Power Point diagram succeeds in demonstrating the complexity of winning the war in Afghanistan, what the image does not do is clearly identify each problem in order for the audience to understand it. According to Edward Tuft "presentations largely stand or fall on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content" and also states that some Power Points "standard elevates format over content," which can clearly be seen in the diagram