ENGAGING LECTURE TIP 19 Less Is More

Most of us have heard of and likely experienced a PowerPoint presentation when a presenter displays too much text on a single slide, which he or she then proceeds to read. The audience is caught between the choice of whether to pay attention to the slide or the speech because we cannot do both simultaneously, and typically chooses to read the slide because most people read faster than the typical rate of human speech. Then we must wait as the speaker dutifully attends to each word on the slide, the same words we've long before finished reading. We are bored. Hmmm, perhaps a quick check for messages on the phone while waiting for the speaker to catch up …

Poorly designed slide presentations interfere with ...

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