Thesis Defense Presentation

Need help. Am defending my thesis and don't know how to strike the balance between content (my ppt's getting too wordy already) and visuals (won't too much pictures downgrade the formality of the presentation?). I also have a problem with the length. No matter how I try to shorten into bullets, I still have too many slides. Don't want to keep slashing my slides either as I might be watering down my discussion...But i definitely want it to be professional and lively.

Thanks a million!

Cynch

A common problem, but in presentations less really is more. A picture is really worth a thousand words. I would suggest that you cut a lot of the text and use more pictures.

However with a thesis you do still need to make sure that it looks like it has substance. One way that the consultants get around this is to have two slides per page. A very visual slide that is displayed on the screen and a more detailed slide that is also included in the handout notes.

They usually print the presentation double sided so that the simple slide is above the fold and the detailed slide is at the bottom.

I would also suggest that you use the headline at the top of the slide to cover the main message that you want to get across.

Key to this whole process is rehearsal. I suggest that you read the article Essential Presentation skills. http://www.presentationmagazine.com/...ion_skills.htm

cynchdiaz,

What you want to avoid is putting all your talk on to your slides, and then reading from your slides. The slides are an aid/pointer to your audience and you of what to talk about. I like presentations with lots of pictures in them.

Why are you worried about too many slides? (if they all contain just pictures - then it's not a such a problem for the audience)

cheers