PowerPoint Presentations

There are many articles with good advice about using PowerPoint. The three articles we used in class brought up a variety of good tips that covered everything from the most important pointers to the most offensive errors. Although much of the advice is more technical, one important thing to keep in mind is that the PowerPoint should only be used as an aid to clarify your point; it should not contain your entire presentation.

Sometimes when creating a PowerPoint it can be hard to stick to so many rules. I think a few basic guidelines would be really helpful to use as a checklist when looking over the finished presentation.

1. Each slide is like a note card for both you and the audience. It reminds you of the order of your presentation so you don't forget any major points and it helps your audience stay focused by giving them a clear visual.

2. Have an aesthetically pleasing background. This means nothing busy or flashy.

3. It is really important to keep your audience in mind. Don't always assume a certain level of background knowledge. Over complicating the topic is just as bad as skimming the surface; the audience doesn't appreciate either.

4. The slide order should allow you to smoothly transition from one point to another. Bad organization makes it hard for the audience to follow you.

5. Use appropriate pictures to support your bullets. The pictures you use greatly influence the tone of your presentation and too many will also leave it cluttered.

Chris Nolan's Presentation

Chris Nolan's presentation about searching the Internet was very interesting. During the presentation I realized that although I was already using some search techniques, there were many more tools available. Quotations, plus and minus symbols, and restrictions will all greatly improve the chances that one will find what they are looking for without having to scroll through page after page of results. I usually don't use quotations in my searches, but after doing a few examples in class I noticed what a big difference they made. I also had no idea that you could limit the type of website in the results either. For me, that particular piece of information will save a lot of time and frustration because it allows you to weed out irrelevant results. Lastly, I almost always use Google when searching the net, not for any particular reason, just out of habit. I was very surprised when the class looked at a chart showing the top 100 sites for both Yahoo! and Google. The chart showed how many sites both search engines pulled up and compared how each engine ranked the relevancy of each site. I was a bit surprised by the difference between the search engines' criteria. Seeing them compared on the chart will probably make me more likely to use both engines in the future.

Copyright Presentation

I thought the presentation about plagiarism and copyright laws was really interesting. Before the presentation I wasn't really clear on some of the copyright laws. I learned a lot about what the RIAA is, how they address illegal file-sharing, and the consequences for doing so. One of the most interesting points was that many professors sell their articles to peer-review journals without understanding what that entails. The publishers that buy these articles charge Universities for using the articles depending on how many people will be viewing them. Even the professor who wrote the article can no longer print and hand out copies free of charge. I found this situation to be pretty upsetting. Many professors sign their contracts without fully realizing the consequences. From the professors point of view, the articles should be made available for education since it was written for that purpose. The publishers feel that since they are a business and a contract was signed, they have every right to charge a fee to universities per each person using the article. I understand that the publishers are in business to make money, but with education as a priority and tuition on the rise, something needs to be done. I think it is important that faculty realize what they are signing and the affect it has on access to current educational material. It would be best to reach a compromise in which the publishers make a small profit and educational institutions pay significantly less than they are currently.

Whats the Big Deal About Excel?

I've learned a lot since we have started working with excel. I knew how to use basic formulas, but I had never used conditions, sorting, and other stuff like that. Now I'm pretty good at using all the different options. Luckily labs will be a lot easier now that I can use excel well.

I'll admit I had absolutely no idea how to link PowerPoint and excel. This will definitely come in handy when doing any kind of report or study for school. It will also be a help when getting ready to present findings for a lot of different kinds of jobs. Having the two linked could save a lot of extra work.