1. OCR Functional Skills Presentations Keep it simple – The attention span of most audiences is very limited! – Don’t cram too much information on the slides, favour images and bullet points over lots of text

2. OCR Functional Skills A good presentationA bad presentation All elements, even figure legends are visible from the back of the audience Text too small or too much text Good organisation – introduction with overview, discussion, conclusion Poor organisation with no structure No more than one idea per slideMore than one idea per slide Lists three bullet points – audiences remember threes Long lists with irrelevant information Images rather than text – use relevant graphics to illustrate points Irrelevant graphics and images A minimum number of slides – no more than ten for a five minute talk Too many slides Animation used on content – video or introducing ideas one-by-one Too much animation Spell checked and grammatically correctError strewn

3. OCR Functional Skills Think about the audience – Who is your presentation for? – What do you want to achieve? – What message do you want to get across? – Who is your target audience? – Decide what you want to say? – Decide what to put on the slides to illustrate points – Limit the number of slides – Decide how many images and graphics you want to add

4. OCR Functional Skills Colour – What colour are you using on what background? – Is it gentle on the eyes A good colour to use – gentle on the eyes and clear from a distance. A bad colour to use in this instance – a strain to read it.

5. OCR Functional Skills Text – Choose a sans serif font – aerial for example – The readers at the back of the room need to be able to see your presentation – Try standing roughly 3 metres from your screen to see if you can read the text on your slides – Use capital letters only for your first page and main headings, be consistent how you use fonts – Keep the titles short and snappy

6. OCR Functional Skills Illustrations – Prefer graphics to text but only if they are relevant to your talk – Charts work better than tables – Use real photos for effect – these can be photos of actual items or people