Here are some tips for preparing your presentation using PowerPoint.

• Keep in mind that the presentation will be displayed on a large screen, so be careful with your choice of colors. The version displayed on the screen will not look as clear as what you see on the monitor.
• Your slides should use a large font so that the points you make can be read by those in the back of the room.
• Use BOLD, ITALICS, UNDERLINING, and CO LO R on your slides to liven them up. Be careful, however, not to use too much in the way of graphics, sound effects, and animation, since (i) they take too much time, and (ii) they may be distracting to your listeners.
• Your slides should highlight the subject and present results that should be explained in your speech. If you have equations on a slide, be sure to tell your listeners what each variable represents and use words to explain their meaning/significance.
• Do not put too many points on a single slide, because your audience will be busily trying to read what you have written instead of listening to your talk.
• Be concise, but make sure you give enough information so that people unfamiliar with the subject can follow your talk.
• The style of your presentation should be consistent and grammatically correct. Make sure to use a spelling checker.

When giving your presentation, you should make sure to do the following:

• Be sure to speak clearly, loudly, and evenly so that the entire audience can hear you.
• Address the audience and point to items on the screen to focus their attention.
• Avoid the use of "umm", "like", etc. that may be acceptable in conversation, because the talk you are giving is formal.
• Watch you hand movements. Your will be holding the mouse and should click when you want the next slide (or graphic if animated effects are used). If you advance too far, use the page up and page down keys on the keyboard to adjust your position in the presentation.
• Use the laptop monitor to keep track of where you are in your talk. If you do this, you will not need to look at the screen to see where you are.

You should practice your speech to make sure that the speech can be completed within the given time limits. This can be done with your partner, if you have one, or a friend or family member. Remember that you are only allotted a fixed amount of time for your presentation, and part of that time is used to answer questions that the audience may ask.

When answering questions from the audience, if you do not know the answer say so. Do not try to make something up unless you have some insight and, if so, you should qualify it as such.

Appearance is important. For so me talks, business casual is sufficient, but others are more formal and a suit and tie or dress or something similar is appropriate. What you wear is part of your presentation since you, as well as your speech and slides, are on display.

The Goal: A presentation with excellent content that is appealing and informative!

1. Title Page
   • Title
   • Author
   • Affiliation
   • Occasion
   • Date
2. Abstract or Overview
   • A bulleted or enumerated list of topics to be covered. This is essentially a brief outline for your presentation.
3. Slides to develop the topics listed in the abstract/overview
   • This is the body of your talk.
   • Be careful with graphics: if included in particular ways, the size of the PowerPoint presentation can be huge. If you have many pictures/graphs in your presentation, you may want to use links to them in the actual PowerPoint file. This means that for the presentation to be complete, you need to have the PowerPoint file and the pictures present.
4. Future Directions (generally for works in progress)
   • Describes the future work to be done and should ideally present a way in which to complete or accomplish the research.
   • Additional directions related to the research and open problems that remain.
   • Additional applications related to the subject presented.
5. Conclusion
   • This is a summary for your presentation.
   • Topics from the future directions may be included here to accentuate the value of the research project.