4.

Plan your notes and verify timings (45 minutes): Step 4

Why you should use notes

I’m going to recommend something that sounds a little old-fashioned, but bear with me. One of the concerns that people have about doing a talk is what to do if their mind goes blank. Forgetting what you want to say is one of the reasons that PowerPoint (and its cousins) are used so much. The slides serve a triple purpose of handouts, speaker notes and visual aids, when they should only really serve one (for more in-depth advice on what to do with them, see Chapter 5.)

If people use PowerPoint as notes, their rhythm is controlled by the software. It becomes ‘new slide, new point – new slide, new point’. This makes for a bland presentation, and also has the ...

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