Chapter 4. Organizing a Presentation

In this chapter

• Learn why it's important to know your audience before you develop a presentation

• Find out what's required to hold the audience's attention

• Learn to use PowerPoint's outline feature to organize a presentation

• Discover how to save time by using pre-existing Word text or PowerPoint slides

Unless you're already an experienced teacher or public speaker, you may not be aware of the importance of sizing up the audience before you even start preparing a presentation. If you don't know who you're speaking to what they want to know or what will keep their interest it makes little sense to jump in and create a slide show. Sure, you might prepare something entertaining, but will the folks in the audience walk away better informed or motivated than they were before you spoke to them?

On the other hand, when you know who your audience is, selecting the right elements and organizing your presentation becomes a much easier task. This chapter explores the process of organizing appropriate and effective presentations.