Verbal Style


Now for some stylistic techniques that apply to all text slides, whether they contain bullets or sentences. These are seemingly minor points that your audience may never consciously notice, but have a definite subconscious impact on them and on how they perceive your slide and therefore your message. Follow these simple and straightforward style guidelines whenever you create text slides.

Use Possessives /Plurals Correctly and Sparingly If At All

This is a grammatical and stylistic point that surprisingly few people understand. The use of an apostrophe plus "s" ('s) to mark the plural form is simply bad English. Apostrophe plus "s" should be used only for contractions (words from which one or more letters have been dropped, like I'll, can't, you'd, and he's) and possessives (for instance, IBM's new chairman, the company's headquarters).

Nonetheless, many people mistakenly use apostrophe plus "s" in plurals, especially when pluralizing acronyms or numbers as in Figure 7.8.

Figure 7.8. Using apostrophe plus "s" for plurals is wrong.

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This approach can compound the grammatical mistake by leading to momentary confusion and more work for your audience. Consider the following sentence :

DVD's produce sharper images than VHS's because a DVD's resolution of 500 lines is greater than a VHS's resolution of 240 lines.

The first DVD and VHS references are plural; the second references are possessive .

Using acronyms is risky because they may be unfamiliar to part of your audience. If you do use an acronym, the correct way to turn it into a plural form is with a lowercase "s" and no apostrophe. The same applies to a number or to any other word that needs to be expressed as a plural as in Figure 7.9.

Figure 7.9. The correct way to make plurals: lowercase "s" and no apostrophe.

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Actually, you can and should avoid using apostrophe plus "s" at all in your presentations. Although it is grammatically correct, you can exercise literary license in the interest of Less Is More. Eliminating apostrophe plus "s" eliminates extra characters , making the text easier to read and faster to comprehend. See the difference between "IBM's New Chairman" and "New IBM Chairman."

If you do use an acronym, the correct way to turn it into a plural form is with a lowercase "s" and no apostrophe.

Keep Your Font Choices Simple

Most graphics programs, including Microsoft's PowerPoint, provide dozens of different type styles, known as fonts . Some cost-conscious presenters seem to think, "We've paid for all these fonts we ought to use all of them." The result is a slide that looks like a ransom note as in Figure 7.10.

Figure 7.10. The ransom note slide.

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For all your text slides, resist the temptation to get too creative with font choices. Use two or, at most, three different type styles for a single presentation. The result will be a unified look and feel that conveys a clear, consistent message.

Use two or, at most, three different type styles for a single presentation.

One easy way to add creative styling and remain simple is to use one font style for titles and another for bullets; another is to use two sizes of the same font, a larger one for titles and a smaller one for bullets. You can add further styling by choosing one color for titles and another for bullets, or you can make one of your choices an italic version of the same font. Less Is More is particularly applicable when it comes to typographic choices.

Proportional Spacing

Let's say you've followed the 4 x 4 rule for your bullet slide, and it looks like Figure 7.11.

Figure 7.11. Four by four but is there more?

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See the problem? All the bullets are bunched up in the top half of the slide, leaving the bottom half empty. The look is not only imbalanced , the empty space sets up an anticipation that is not going to be resolved. You can easily remedy this problem with proportional spacing: Distribute the bullets evenly over the entire slide, as in Figure 7.12.

Figure 7.12. Proportional spacing.

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Presenting to Win. The Art of Telling Your Story
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, Updated and Expanded Edition
ISBN: 0137144172
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 94

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