the blackboard and its modern counterpart, the white- board. The benefit of these is that you will be able to create your visual aids while speaking, drawing, or writ- ing on the board. Of course, this is also the big down- side, since you can’t prepare your material in advance.
Even so, drawing while you speak is a great way to rivet your audience’s attention, and writing out perti- nent points as you go helps make abstract information more concrete. Follow the principles listed for maps and charts when using a blackboard or whiteboard.
Slides
There was a time when a slide projector was considered indispensable to any public speaking forum. It enabled a speaker to show visual images of almost anything he or she wanted to talk about, whether a trip to exotic locales or colorful pie charts and graphs. It enabled the audience to see visuals clearly, since even something
like a tiny watch gear could be photographed and enlarged to clear visibility.
The advent of digital photography, however, has changed all this, and these days it might be difficult to ever get your hands on a carousel slide projector. Yet, you might find yourself in a situation that demands a slide projector, such as needing to use 35mm photo- graphs to illustrate your presentation. (Even in that situation, incidentally, you might do better to have the images scanned into digital format and use a PowerPoint projector.) If you do need a slide projec- tor, follow these tips:
n Be sure that the room can be darkened
enough for the slides to be visible. This is one of the downsides to slides: A darkened room invites your audience to take a nap. But the slides won’t be visible if there is extraneous light; you might even need to cover windows.
n Do not move through the slides too quickly—
or too slowly. You should leave each slide on screen for approximately 20 seconds to allow your audience to examine it. More than that runs the risk of becoming boring, while less makes the viewer’s eyes spin.
n Use a remote control. When I was growing up,
slide projectors didn’t have carousels; each slide was “injected” and “ejected” by a side-to-side sliding mechanism. The speaker would stand at the front and say “next,” while an assistant oper- ated the projector. This created a very sleepy cadence that never failed to lull me into a nap. A remote allows you to move through the slides at your own pace without interruption.
overheads
The overhead projector was considered state of the art when I was young, but these days it has been supplanted
–Seeing iS belieVing–
by PowerPoint presentations. All the same, I still like to use it when possible for a number of reasons.
For one thing, an overhead projector gives you great flexibility. You can order your transparencies however you want them, and then reorder them on the fly as needed. You can have a mixture of prepared trans- parencies and blank ones to write on as you speak. (In the olden days, projectors even had rolls of transpar- ency material stretched across them so you could write to your heart’s content, scrolling as you went along.)
Follow these tips when using an overhead projector:
n Number your transparencies. They are slip-
pery, and sooner or later you will drop them. Trust me on this. It is most likely to happen just as you are about to use them, and then it’s too late to put them back in order. Numbers discreetly written in a corner will be a lifesaver.
n Look up! Of all the visual aids we’re discussing,
the overhead projector is probably the worst for those who get distracted by their aids. You can so easily find yourself standing over the projector, staring down at your transparency as you speak, and this is a real trap.
n Point to the screen, not to the transparency.
This principle grows out of the previous one. The reason that you’ll be staring down is that you’ll be pointing out details in your transpar- ency to your audience. Instead, use a pointer of some sort (a yardstick will do if you don’t have a laser pointer) to indicate what you’re discuss- ing directly on the screen. And remember to face your audience rather than the screen, as we’ve discussed already.
n Prepare the projector before you speak. Over-
heads need to be adjusted for audience visi- bility in more ways than other projectors. You need to position them the correct distance from the screen to get the largest image possible; you need to swivel the mirror head to the center of the screen (and also to
minimize the keystone effect); and you need to focus the mirror head up and down. All this requires your full attention on the pro- jector, and will seriously interfere with your speech. Do it ahead of time so you won’t have to think about it when speaking.
PowerPoint
This computer-based application has become the industry standard in presenting visual aids, replacing most of the two-dimensional approaches we’ve dis- cussed thus far. (Nothing can ever quite replace a com- pelling use of three-dimensional objects.) PowerPoint enables you to create visually attractive slides that pres- ent information in almost any format you desire. If you’re computer savvy, you can even incorporate motion and sound into your presentation.
The downside to PowerPoint is, ironically, the very fact that it is so powerful and easy to use. Many speakers become overly dependent upon their PowerPoint presentations and forget to develop their speech properly. This can lead to a speech that is more of a slide show than a public speaking event. As with all other visual aids, your PowerPoint presentation exists solely to further your speech—not vice versa.
Follow these tips when using PowerPoint:
n Do not read your slides to the audience. They
can read; let them. Use the words on a slide to augment the words you speak, or to give a broad overview of a point while you go into greater depth verbally.
n Use visual images in your slides effectively.
Colors and clip art can enhance the words on a slide and make them more interesting to look at. But the rules for objects apply here, too: Graphic images should have some connection to the words. Don’t overdo animations or other graphic effects. They are a visual spice; use them sparingly.
–Seeing iS belieVing–
n Use a legible font. Computers make it tempt-
ing to play around with fancy fonts, such as pretty scripts and unusual specialty fonts. But those fancy fonts can be very difficult to read from the back of an audience, causing your visual aids to become visual distractions. When in doubt, use Times New Roman—and remember to make it large enough to read from far away.
n Have someone proofread your slides. I can’t
tell you how many times I’ve sat through PowerPoint presentations that were filled with typos and misspellings. This does more than distract the audience; it makes the speaker look careless and unprepared! Do not depend on your computer’s spell-check feature, either, since it will not catch the most flagrant spelling errors—such as to, too, and two; women instead of woman; their, they’re, and there; and many other common mistakes.
Handouts
Finally, printed sheets of paper can be an effective form of visual aid. In fact, they are one of the most effective forms, because they give the audience information they can literally take home with them. There is also a tactile element to a printed sheet of paper, something the audience can touch and feel, which is not available in a slide presentation.
Follow these tips when handing out printed material:
n Keep it brief. As with all visual aids, avoid the
pitfall of putting too much information into your handouts. An outline works well, or bul- leted points like the lists in this book. These are just short sentences and phrases that summa- rize the information that you have expounded on in your speech.
n Keep it simple. Don’t fall prey to the tempta-
tion to show off your fonts and clip art. Stick to the reason for the handout and avoid extraneous elements that will distract a reader.
n Keep it until the end. The danger of handouts
is that you cannot make your audience stop looking at them. Slides are an advantage in that respect; when you’re done, you turn it off. But once you give your listeners something to read, they become readers rather than listeners. Don’t distribute handouts until you’re done speaking.