PowerPoint is misused by so many speakers. Even those speakers who are well intended and who want to improve their slides often don’t know how. It does take a little practice but, as you cut words from your slides, it becomes easy to see how much easier it is to present from slides that aren’t crammed full of text.
One of my legal writing professors once said that “every word should have a purpose.” And I apply this advice every time I edit my own work; I ask myself, “Does this word add any value?” It can be tedious—but only until you get a taste of the revised version.
Jan Schultink, author of Sticky Slides blog, links to an earlier post, which contains a list of words that can easily be removed from slides, as well as suggested replacements. It’s a great source of information that you can reference in a hurry when you’re putting together your next deck of slides.
