Visual Aids

Visual aids should aid your presentation, not duplicate it or distract from it. Indeed, use of simple, readily assimilated visuals can allow you to provide a quick overview and essential background for the project, freeing you up to use most of your time to focus on the areas in which you need most feedback.
Tips (which apply to powerpoint slides as well as the more old-fashioned overhead transparencies):

• Include only key words or prompts to what you're going to say
• 15-20 words only on any one visual
• Text should be 1/2 inch high or more
• Be wary of bullet points (except when the topic is a list of items such as these tips).
  • (The problem with bullets is that, even when all of the points may be relevant and interesting, they are not given names and an ordering that conveys a flow in which each point prepares the way for the one that follows. If you are accustomed to making bullet points, ask a peer or your advisor to take notes as you practice speaking the words that link the bullets, then use those notes to rephrase and order the bullets so the flow or logic is evident in the visual, that is, it can be taken in without your spoken narrative.
• Design your visual aids not on full size sheets, but inside quadrants of a single sheet of paper divided into four parts. Print your words in these quadrants, then scale up to the actual visual aid and you will not squeeze too much text in one slide.