Making a Point About PowerPoint

The big piece of advice I picked up from the various articles and tips on creating effective PowerPoint presentations was to limit the amount of information on each slide. Apparently, when not used to aid students with taking notes in class, a PowerPoint presentation by itself shouldn't actually tell the audience much. That part is up to you, the presenter. Because the PowerPoint is only the visual aid to the presentation, not the presentation itself, I found the following pieces of advice to be the most helpful and/or intriguing:

• Use no more than two fonts in a single presentation, and make sure they are both from the same font type (Serif and Sans-Serif)
• Alter your pictures as they fulfill different purposes in the slide. For a picture that is the main point of the slide, keep it defined, make it interesting, and place it prominently. For a picture that serves as a piece of interest on a slide with other information, make it less obtrusive with techniques like upping the transparency and fading the edges, so it doesn't jump out at you.
• Don't load up on animations and cartoon images and the like. Just because it comes standard with PowerPoint doesn't mean that it is ideal for a presentation. Keep the slide transitions simple and avoid cartoony clip art. Everyone has seen it before. Instead, try using striking, high-quality photographs. 
• Do use video! It can add visual interest, new information, and generally keep the presentation from getting monotonous. 
• Under no circumstances are you to use your PowerPoint as a teleprompter! Have highlights of what you will say, or better yet, representations that will highlight what you have to say, not actually tell the people the information. Limited text is a very good thing. One of the articles recommended no more than 6 words on a slide! Another even said to include none, if possible. 

My biggest PowerPoint pet peeve isn't actually the incredibly enthusiastic use of transitions and the like, though they can be annoying enough. I really dislike it when people don't proofread. We can't see your notes, so what little text we do see up there had better be correct! Random grammar mistakes, typos, incorrect dates, pictures that fly in and cover up half of the text- all things that could be corrected if you just ran through the presentation with your roommate once.