We're just going to go ahead and start off this blog post by letting the following Tweet speak for itself:
Unless your presentation tells a story, the audience won’t care about the ending — they’ll just pray for it.
— Matt Homann (@matthomann) July 30, 2015
Although PowerPoint presentations can be extraordinarily helpful for many legal professionals, such as litigators and trial lawyers, they can actually do more harm than good if they aren’t used effectively. That said, today we're breaking down the best tips and tricks to help you master Microsoft PowerPoint presentations (and maximize the effectiveness of your argument).
Go into your PowerPoint presentation with a specific goal in mind (and act on that goal).
The PowerPoint shouldn’t be a collection of disjointed thoughts; instead, it should tell a carefully-composed story of the ultimate point you’re trying to sell your audience on. The best way to make sure you’re telling your story in the most effective way possible is to start at the end of your presentation and then craft each slide in a way that brings you closer to tying up loose ends and unanswered questions.
More importantly, your presentation should be used as a tool of persuasion, meaning it should be an outline that guides your audience through the story you hope to tell, not tell the story for you. That said, it’s important to be able to gauge your audience on the fly, adjusting as necessary in order to retain their attention at all times. If you build your presentation in a way that gives you some flexibility as you go along, you’ll be able to read your audience and adjust as necessary, maximizing your presentation’s potential.
The key to a winning argument lies in the preparation that happens before you step foot in the courtroom.
The key to a well-received PowerPoint lies in the preparation. The #1 thing you want to avoid is boredom: the minute that you lose your jury, the argument is over for you. In order to prevent this, it’s important to practice your argument until the story flows organically. Your voice should be authentic and engaging, not robotic and rehearsed: there is nothing worse than a presentation in which the presenter simply reads verbatim off of their slides.
Moreover, it’s crucial to remember that jurors come from all different backgrounds, which means that you shouldn’t hide your argument behind jargon or complicated language. Visually, a PowerPoint should read as an outline, not an essay, so it’s important to use simple, concise bullet points instead of entire blocks of text on your slides. To ensure maximum engagement, write less on your slides and expand on your ideas when you actually speak to the jury, using your speech to deepen and amplify your argument.
Formatting and design help the audience process and understand easier.
Don’t underestimate the power of design and formatting to help you convey your main point. A few best practices include:
- - Employ section headers that tell your audience exact what they’re looking at
- - Make sure the slide is legible and can be read from at least 15 feet away.
- - Keep slides clear and devoid of cluttered blocks of text or multiple photos.
- - Stay away from long slides, distracting fonts, small fonts, and illegible colors.
- - Utilize Bold, Italics, and Underline when necessary to make important points pop.
A mixed use of visuals goes a long way in getting your point across
When creating a PowerPoint, don’t be afraid to mix it up! Varying the format, both in terms of visuals and delivery, will add power to your punch. Feel free to use images, videos, charts, timelines, and more to make your presentation aesthetically pleasing and interesting to look at (not to mention that adding visuals will help you cater to different learning styles).
On the flip side, although visuals are a great additive, it’s important that you don’t go overboard with them. It’s easy to get too trigger-happy and overwhelm the audience with a multitude of images, videos and special effects (as cute as your cat picture may be, it probably has no place in your presentation). That said, limit your use of pictures to those that are exclusively relevant to your case. Finally, if you’re bold enough to use animation, try to limit use to when it genuinely adds value to your presentation. One example of this would be when you have a list of bullet points: often, audiences try to read ahead on your slides and don’t listen while you speak, so adding bullet points that appear on the screen one at a time will keep your audience from skipping ahead and tuning you out.
PowerPoint Alternatives
Now, if you’ve got your PowerPoint skills on lock, try your hand at a few of these fun and interesting PowerPoint alternatives:
What are your go-to strategies for creating killer PowerPoint presentations? Leave your best tips and tricks in the comments!
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